I obtained the front sheet of the police report filed Monday from the Douglas County Sheriff's Office (redacted to protect Mirecki's personal information):
Posted on 12/08/2005 8:26:48 AM PST by PJ-Comix
Kansas University's Paul Mirecki, the controversial religious studies professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he derided Christian conservatives as "fundies," was allegedly beaten on Monday morning by two unidentified white men who he claims targeted him for his views. The Lawrence Journal World reported:
Douglas County sheriff’s deputies are investigating the reported beating of a Kansas University professor who gained recent notoriety for his Internet tirades against Christian fundamentalists.
Kansas University religious studies professor Paul Mirecki reported he was beaten by two men about 6:40 a.m. today on a roadside in rural Douglas County. In a series of interviews late this afternoon, Mirecki said the men who beat him were making references to the controversy that has propelled him into the headlines in recent weeks.
“I didn’t know them, but I’m sure they knew me,” he said.
Mirecki said he was driving to breakfast when he noticed the men tailgating him in a pickup truck.
“I just pulled over hoping they would pass, and then they pulled up real close behind,” he said. “They got out, and I made the mistake of getting out.”
He said the men beat him about the upper body with their fists, and he said he thinks they struck him with a metal object. He was treated and released at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
“I’m mostly shaken up, and I got some bruises and sore spots,” he said.
Douglas County Sheriff’s Officials are classifying the case as an aggravated battery. They wouldn’t say exactly where the incident happened, citing the ongoing investigation.
The sheriff’s department is looking for the suspects, described as two white males between ages 30 and 40, one wearing a red visor and wool gloves, and both wearing jeans. They were last seen in a large pickup truck...
If Mirecki was indeed the victim of this alleged crime, it is a travesty and a shame, and the alleged assailants should be prosecuted to the fullest extent.
There is, however, another possibility: It could be a hoax. Mirecki's reticence, lack of specifics, and odd behavior are raising some doubts. Says one skeptic:
If a pickup truck was driving behind you in the early morning in a deserted rural area, and two men got out holding a large metal object, and you were still in your car, would you get out to go talk with them? ... How did those in the pickup truck find him? Were they waiting at his house? In that case Dr. Mirecki should have noticed them right away. How would they just randomly find him in the middle of the country?
Asking such questions may seem mean-spirited, but given the prevalence of staged hate crimes since the Tawana Brawley hoax two decades ago, skepticism is warranted. Just last year, an assistant visiting professor at Claremont McKenna College was sentenced to prison after she staged an anti-Semitic hate crime against herself. Earlier this year, a lesbian student at Mt. Tamalpais High School in Marin County, Calif., faked several anti-gay incidents to garner attention and sympathy.
Curiously, earlier Wednesday, Mirecki resigned the chairmanship of KU's religious studies department. (Resignation letter here.) According to Barbara Romzek, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Mirecki resigned on the recommendation of his colleagues. Strange. Do they know something we don't?
***
I obtained the front sheet of the police report filed Monday from the Douglas County Sheriff's Office (redacted to protect Mirecki's personal information):
As you can see (click for larger view), there's not much there. In a phone interview, sheriff's spokeswoman Lt. Kari Wempe could not provide much more detail. She did tell me that Mirecki could not recall where the incident took place. And she said that 20 minutes ensued between the time the incident allegedly occured and when Mirecki reportedly contacted authorities. "It seems like a long time to me," Wempe noted, but declined to elaborate.
More weirdness via the University Daily Kansas.com: Officers clarify Mirecki attack details.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office initially labeled the attack on Professor Paul Mirecki a hate crime.
But the office removed the title today, calling the labeling a mistake.
Lt. Kari Wempe said that the error occurred Monday morning when the attack was reported.
Officers wrongly transmitted the information over the police radio, she said. It is not classified as an aggravated battery.
So what exactly is it?
I contacted the Lawrence Memorial Hospital for more details on the nature of Mirecki's injuries. Citing HIPAA regulations, a hospital spokeswoman declined to provide any more information. She did state that Mirecki was not hospitalized, as many MSM reports have claimed, but came to the emergency room and was "treated and released."
Mirecki told one reporter that he had "got the hell beat out of me,” but now the once-accessible professor is clamming up:
On Wednesday, Mirecki said he would no longer be giving interviews to the media.
"I've got too much of backlash from the reporting," he said.
One of Mirecki's colleagues, professor Timothy Miller, who once headed the department, said members of the faculty talked with Mirecki about his options before he made his decision to resign.
"There's been lots of conversations about what's good for professor Mirecki and what's good for the department," Miller said. "I hope this new development will be positive on both fronts."
Miller said he hoped Mirecki and the department could put the controversy behind them. There are students to teach and finals are coming up.
"We're living under quite a cloud and quite a burden these days," Miller said. "Paul has had a pretty rugged two weeks, and we've got work to do."
Interesting, no?
***
Bloggers covering the story from all sides:
Brainster's Blog is skeptical. So is Sean Gleeson.
More from The Moderate Voice and Classical Values.
Telic Thoughts boils down what's known and not known and rounds up the outrage of bloggers/commentators who have accepted Mirecki's version of events wholesale.
Stay tuned...
***
Update: Conflicting information about Mirecki's physical appearance the day of the attack in this article (hat tip: Verum Serum):
[Margaret] Rausch [an assistant professor of religious studies] said she last saw Mirecki at the religious studies department’s monthly faculty meeting on Monday [the same day as the alleged attack] and noticed “big swollen spots” on his face.
“It transformed his face,” she said.
Jesse Plous, New York senior, and Tiffany Jeffers, Shawnee senior, are enrolled in Mirecki’s Dead Sea Scrolls class. They said they didn’t notice bruises or scratches when they met for class at 12:30 p.m. Monday [about six hours after the alleged attack].
Lindsay Mayer, Holbrook, Ariz., junior, another student in the class, said she might have seen a small bruise on the side of his face, but said injuries weren’t extremely noticeable.
Mirecki didn’t show up for class on Wednesday. The students said Mirecki had never mentioned the controversy in class.
“It’s a good class, it really is,” said Plous. “It’s too bad he’s been steeped in controversy. I hope it pans out for the guy.”
Meanwhile, a Daily Kos diarist claims the attack is a "terrorist act as defined by the Patriot Act" but backs down from his claim that the alleged beating left Mirecki "within [an] inch of his life."
***
Related:
Hate crime hoax at Ole Miss
Colleges perfect milieu for hate crime hoaxes
Unhinged: The Mugshot Collection [scroll down to Kerri Dunn]
Another hate crime hoax
Crimes of the phantoms
Tawana Brawley goes to college
Muslim "hate crimes"
Myth of the Muslim hate crime epidemic
SOMA is a student group for which Mirecki is faculty advisor. Apparently they quite like him. So I'd expect they would tend to take him at his word. I tend to take my friends at their word too.
I said nothing about SOMA itself.
I respect your opinion on this, but just speaking for myself I generally ignore the types of posts you mentioned. Silence doesn't mean I approve of the content of those posts.
#####Yes, fundamentalists are often stupid bastards. Atheists are sometimes - I wouldn't say often - stupid bastards too.#####
My agreement or disagreement would depend on which fundamentalists you're talking about. Christians, Moslems, Jews, Buddhists, and Atheists can all be fundamentalists, as can members of countless other groups.
The thread went from 12/05 and 11:30 AM to 12/8 at 10 AM. A three day long, 752 post thread. Of course people are going to miss stuff and not have time to reply to *everything* they see. Sure this stuff is uncalled for but to make a blanket condemnation of one group of people because the response they made (or didn't make) isn't what you thought they should be making is uncalled for also. Besides , it looked like you guys had the matter of condemning them pretty well under control. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. What happened verbally to many of the Christians on that thread was not much different from the alleged beating the Professor got.
I wouldn't compare any verbal retorts, no matter how vicious, to physical violence.
Looks like crude humor, all right, but one sympathetic to the idea of beating the crap out of Mirecki.
F.J. Mitchell's was in bad taste but intended to be a bad joke
I'm so glad you can read his mind, because further down the thread he posted even more violent sentiments.
I note you quoted LK44-40. Well this is pretty low of you. First, the post was pulled.
It was there a long time. Evidently management wised up, as they did with kimosabe31's post 461. But why do you think the mods belatedly taking down a few of the many hateful posts in that thread is of any relevance?
Do I have to spell out what that means or did you figure it out on your own?
Why don't you spell it out?
There was an orgy of yee-haw humor going on about the incident. It was the main theme of the thread.
*Sigh*.
Troll. It was pretty clear by the over-the-top language, besides the recent sign-up date. Anybody can sign up and post anything.
As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. The reason that Jesus said that our thoughts are equivalent to our actions is that it's just a matter of the amount of self control a person has to act on them or not. You watch a bunch of kids yelling at each other and it usually results in a physical confrontation. I don't condone physical violence unless it's a matter of self defense or protecting another but words can cut deeper and more painfully than physical injuries. Long after the physical cuts and bruises heal, the words will come back to haunt someone.
It's possible, I suppose.
We agree on that, at least. Equating words with violence is McKinnonesque.
There are other things to deal with, when you talk about physical injuries.
Lawrence, KS - University of Kansas religion professor Paul Mirecki, whose planned course on creationism was canceled after he described Christian students as "redneck Taliban fucktards who belong in formaldehyde, not in classrooms," was released today from a Lawrence hospital after an attack by a mysterious gang of Nascar racers.
According to Mirecki, he was driving his car at 3 AM on the outskirts of town when "20 or 30" Nascar race car pickup trucks suddenly appeared in a local WalMart parking lot and began following him menacingly, blaring AM talk radio. He says they ran him into a ditch, and began beating him with bibles, banjos and moonshine jars marked with 'XXX.'
"'This here's MERIKUH, and wee's all Jezus lovin' USA MER'KINS, yew gol-durn trickifyin' commernist smartypants! Stop challingin' our traditional backwoods bible valewz and tax cuts with yer dirty college book-larnin'!'" Mirecki quoted one of the assailants as saying. Mirecki said another threatened to "'shut up that thar purty professerin' mouth o' yers, lessen yew stop perluti-fyin' our Kansas hillbilly yunguns withen yore Satan monkey theories.'"
Mirecki was released from the hospital after treatment for minor bruises on his right cheekbone and fist.
Lawrence Police spokesman Carl Baher said that identifing the assailants would be difficult because, according to Mirecki, they were wearing Klan hoods and Sean Hannity masks. Nevertheless, Baher said his department would pursue all leads in the incident, the first recorded Nascar-related hate crime to occur in this quiet university town in more than 120 years.
"We are asking the Lawrence and KU community to aid in the investigation," said Baher. "Please report all sitings of white hillbilly Nazi plutocrats driving loud race pickups with large Halliburton or Enron decals."
(from IowaHawk)
Why do you think so many people stayed off of it then? The thread deteriorated rather quickly. I didn't see the point or have the inclination to be part of it. My posting on FR is on my terms, I will pick and choose which ones I respond to and I won't be baited into participating in one like that; and that's what it seemed like was going on with all the accusations of "Your silence is condoning the violence." People can make all the speculations and conjecture about my motives that they want and it won't change my mind.
Probable more than possible. What better way to give Christians a bad name than by posing as one and being a real jerk? The problem is that there is no way of stopping it from happening. Most people I know that are serious about their faith are not like that. If someone claims to be a Christian and acts like that, I just consider that they're not and move on. Talk is cheap. If their lives do not match up to what they profess, then they are frauds. But just because people are hypocrites or weak, doesn't invalidate the message of the gospel. That is true even if people aren't.
Doesn't hold a candle to those of your peers on the evo threads.
LOL! My picture was before the Grand Master evolved. Alas, however, even Sponge Bob Square Pants didn't want to be associated with the Mirecki name.
They just want to keep you busy, rhetoric-wise, "apologizing" for some stray comment they pretend to think is out of line. It's a Democrat tactic--like apologizing for the Civil War because you're white or from the South. Let 'em "ignore". Notice they don't reciprocate with all this bowing and apologizing, btw, when one of their fellows makes a perfect idiot of himself.
If there are fellows, rather than fellow.
And observe the "gangup" habits of these evo-posters (how can they do it in such a timely fashion if they're not connected by IM?)--they isolate a freeper and pile on. Talk about your vile--that's just plain bullying.
Then, when the hoped-for event happens, and the freeper loses his temper, they go screaming and hassling the mods. How infantile.
And inventing rules. Remember that kid you used to play a game with, except he was that jerk who wanted to change the game with all these made-up rules?
"You can't talk to me."
Say, what?
"I've put you on Virtual Ignore, and I'll tell if you post to me."
Good grief, Scientist Sandbox, king of the playground...
Only, what if it's not just an online engagement for those restless sorts (like me), who enjoy a good argument?
What if the whole idea is to chip off support for the GOP of the religious conservatives? It wouldn't take many to turn an election in a battleground state--say, like Pennsylvania?
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