I am occasionally in the intersection at Barracks Rd. and Emmet Street, and when I am there I usually see the guy you call “Clappy” occupying one or more of the concrete medians. He is often yelling at cars, at random, hangs all manner of political banners from the traffic control pole, usually relating to “Black Lives Matter,” and most recently, includes umbrellas. The police will do nothing, apparently because the City told them they are not allowed to interfere with him. As I observe his escalating, aggressive behavior, I’ve wondered what would happen if a conservative or libertarian activist set up shop on the opposing median, and hung banners explaining why white lives matter, too, as do brown ones, and yellow ones, and red ones, and everyone’s lives. And, opposing socialism. I’d imagine that the City and police would shut that person down in less than 3 minutes, for creating a distraction – a term which I use deliberately, because I’ve heard that the #1 cause for accidents these days is “distracted driving.” So what happens when a nutball IS the distraction? If you’re going about your business and a raging nutball approaches your car, screaming at you, waving his fist, etc.? Again, just imagine if this was a white nationalist, or anything that’s the opposite of this guy, politically.
That’s why I decided to put my HD camcorder into my car for a few days to see if I could capture what is causing me such alarm, and voila, I caught at least some of it. In one video, I happened to be parked next to a Cville PD marked vehicle, in an adjoining parking lot, when he spotted the CPD vehicle, and started making threats against it, and other drivers, something along the lines of, “I’ll waste you all, you blue-eyed cracker devils!” He began approaching the CPD vehicle, which I was parked beside – but from the angle I was shooting the video, through my windshield, it was impossible to tell if he was screaming this at me, or the CPD vehicle, so as you can see I abruptly shut the camera off. Right after which, he crossed the two eastbound north lanes and was walking directly towards this parking lot, when I drive off.
Rob, I’d liken this situation to a health situation that could be cured if addressed early on, but the person allows it to fester, unattended, day after day after day after day, and ignores all advice to get it looked at by a physician, and then one day he wakes up and it’s a tragedy. I have a feeling that if this is allowed to persist, he’s going to get it into his deranged mind that some driver looked at him cross-eyed, or didn’t respect his words, or in any way offends him, and based on his behavior in these videos, someone will end up getting hurt – him or his victim/s or both.
I’m sending in these videos in the hope that the City will come to its senses and put a stop to it, before such a tragedy occurs.
Sincerely,
A Deputy Community Watchdog, who hates both racism, and government favoritism, meaning, enabling behavior in some that it prohibits in others, due to racist double-standards, which only helps perpetuate and worsen the very race-based conflicts that they claim to be fighting
His name is Michael Jones, and if you look him up in the court system you’ll see that he’s been charged/convicted in well over a dozen felonies and 3x as many misdemeanors dating back to 1988, which is either when he turned 18 or as far back as the court system goes. He’s a dangerous individual who assaults people on the downtown mall (particularly Asians) and I look forward to the day he’s finally put away permanently. I only hope whatever offense he commits to get that sentence does not hurt anyone. He is one of several dozen “colorful” characters that the liberals around town love to love because they see them as part of our “cultural fabric”. This includes bucket man, stick man, baby stroller man, pretend vietnam vet man, main street liquor store curb crew and others. All worthless and dangerous.