Police: Princeton Student Faked Attack

[Shogun]

Police: Princeton Student Faked Attack

By GEOFF MULVIHILL
Associated Press Writer
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MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) -- A Princeton University student who argued that his conservative views were not accepted on the campus confessed to fabricating an assault and sending threatening e-mail messages to himself and some friends who shared his views, authorities said Monday.

Princeton Township police said that Francisco Nava was not immediately charged with any crime, but that the investigation was continuing.

Nava claimed to have been assaulted Friday by two men off campus, police said. But he later confessed that scrapes and scratches on his face were self-inflicted, and that the threats were his work, too, said Detective Sgt. Ernie Silagyi.

A spokeswoman for the Ivy League university said punishment, which could range from a warning to expulsion, was pending Monday.

"The university takes all matters related to the safety of its community members very seriously," said spokeswoman Lauren Robinson-Brown. "It's particularly concerning that a student would fabricate such matters.

Nava did not respond immediately to an e-mail from The Associated Press on Monday, and a phone listing for him could not be located.

Nava, a 23-year-old junior politics major from Bedford, Texas, found himself at the center of one campus controversy recently when he wrote a column for the student newspaper criticizing the school for giving out free condoms, which he said encouraged a dangerous "hook-up culture."

A short time later, Nava made his first report to the university public safety office that he was receiving threatening messages in his campus mailbox. A friend says Nava told him one message read, in capital letters: "ONE MORE ARTICLE AND YOU WON'T LIVE TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY."

Other members of the Anscombe Society, a conservative student organization, who have spoken out against premarital sex and same-sex marriage, said they received similar threats. So did Robert George, a professor in the politics department.

Robinson-Brown would not say exactly how the university responded to the threats. But she said that, in general, when students are threatened they are given access to counselors, assured that the campus security force will take their calls right away and can be moved to new dorm rooms.

Another student wrote in the campus newspaper Friday that the threats Nava received did not get the same forceful response as anti-gay graffiti that appeared this semester outside the dorm rooms of some gay students.

Brandon McGinley called it a double standard, which made it seem OK to "use intimidation tactics to silence the voices of morally conservative students."

But the threats, like the attack, are apparently a hoax.

"Everyone feels saddened, shocked and surprised to have been dragged along in this," McGinley said. "We're all extremely concerned for (his) mental state."

McGinley said it was a surprise that Nava, who was a resident assistant in a dorm and a member of a campuswide committee on religious life, would be involved in such a hoax.

But he said that after the purported attack, Nava's friends began comparing notes and found some several inconsistencies he told them about threats and the attack. He said they told authorities about them.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FABRICATED_ATTACK?SITE=TNJAC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

 

[Annie]

There's been a rash of these types of faked incidents, here's one going back a year:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/08/kafirphobia_americans_as_viole.html

August 31, 2006
Kafir-phobia: Americans as Violent Anti-Muslim Bigots
By Patrick Poole

The story that developed in July was just too good to pass up: a Jordanian—born restaurant owner in Xenia, Ohio had been the apparent victim of repeated attempts to burn down his store. The day after the third attack, when a Molotov cocktail had been thrown through the front window of his business, yet another explosion rocked the store — the second attack in 24 hours — sending the owner and his son to the hospital with burns over 80—90 percent of their bodies. An employee in an adjoining store was also taken to the hospital for injuries.

Just hours before the blast, the store owner had been interviewed by a local TV station vowing that he would never give in�to pressure to close the store (video of the interview can be seen here).

Into this situation jumped the Cincinnati—area chapter of the Council on American—Islamic Relations�(CAIR) — the self—proclaimed Muslim 'civil rights' organization suggesting that anti—Muslim hatred was at work. An item posted on July 14th on the national CAIR website screamed the headline, 'Blast at Arab—American Restaurant 'Suspicious'� .'

Karen Dabdoub, the local CAIR spokeswoman, was quoted in the local media�saying,

'Anytime an attack like this happens, the perception in the Arab and Muslim community is that it is ethnically or religiously motivated. Especially in the absence of perpetrators being caught by law enforcement, that's the fear. Until that (motivation) is discovered, people speculate, rightly or wrongly.'

The problem with CAIR's narrative of anti—Muslim hatred in small—town America was that it wasn't true. Arson investigators have determined that the final blast that severely injured the store owner, Musa Shteiwi, and his son, Essa, was set by the pair themselves. In a performance worthy of a Darwin Award, the Shteiwis were standing in a pool of gasoline that they intended to use as an accelerant in setting their store ablaze later that night when Musa Shteiwi took a break and lit up a cigarette, igniting the gasoline prematurely and causing the blast that inflicted their injuries.

But there's more: prosecutors claim that Shteiwi had hired a former employee, Joshua Hunter, to commit the previous attacks against his store that CAIR had insisted were hate crimes committed by non—Muslim members of the Xenia community. Hunter has been jailed and charged with arson, and similar charges against Musa and Essa Shteiwi are pending until after they have recovered from their injuries.

This incident is a textbook example of CAIR's incitement of kafir (lit. infidel, non—Muslim)—phobia. On July 14th, when CAIR began making public statements and posting notices on their website about the incident, it had already been widely reported in the Cincinnati Enquirer and local TV news stations that the Shteiwis were either accidentally or intentionally responsible for the explosion. It is clear now that it was both.

That notwithstanding, CAIR officials were quick to use the incident to indulge in their kafir—phobia by portraying the local non—Muslim community as simmering with anti—Muslim hatred, just waiting for the slightest provocation to lash out in acts of violence. But the facts they relied on weren't true and the date of the item regarding this incident posted on CAIR's website was almost a week after it was known and reported numerous times in the local press that the pair were implicated, directly or indirectly, for the blast.

Since the arrest of Shteiwi's associate, CAIR has refused further comment and has offered no apology for its shameless kafir—phobic behavior to the community they falsely impugned.�

This recent incident is hardly the first time that CAIR has used faked hate crimes to flame the fires of kafir—phobia. As Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha discussed in an article last year, "CAIR's Hate Crime Nonsense," a report issued in May 2005 by CAIR, "Unequal Protection: The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States 2005" — a report allegedly identifying a rapid rise of anti—Muslim violence in America — cited several hate crime hoaxes where incidents had been staged or invented whole—cloth by Muslims themselves to make it appear that they were religiously or ethnically motivated. Perhaps CAIR might have rationalized the inclusion of these debunked hate crimes in their report as 'fake, but accurate' representations of supposed anti—Muslim bias in America....

 

[Gem]

This sort of thing seems to be becoming increasingly common. Sadly, I don't find too surprising. When a society gives special, almost star-level status to "victims," we shouldn't be shocked when people think that the only way to be heard is to fake an entry into "victim statushood."

 

[Shogun]

damn, Jillian...


Did you hear that?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

damn, Jillian...


Did you hear that?

How about the Jewish Professor a couple years ago that scrawled nazi crap on her car and claimed she was a victim of racism. She was so dumb she did it in the parking lot and was seen doing it.

 

[AllieBaba]

That sounds like liberal insanity, rather than anything else....

 

[Shogun]

How about the Jewish Professor a couple years ago that scrawled nazi crap on her car and claimed she was a victim of racism. She was so dumb she did it in the parking lot and was seen doing it.

well, I sure wasn't going to mention it since I'm wearing a Scarlet A these days but...


hey, ask my buddy Jill. I'm confident that she can separate that example into apples and oranges.

 

[midcan5]

I think you all have it all wrong, that was no fake attack, asking a conservative to think in college or even on USMB throws them into such a state of panic, they head directly for the gun case. Thought frightens the hell outta them.

 

[William Joyce]

This sort of thing seems to be becoming increasingly common. Sadly, I don't find too surprising. When a society gives special, almost star-level status to "victims," we shouldn't be shocked when people think that the only way to be heard is to fake an entry into "victim statushood."

Yes. This one is a little unusual because it's a conservative, but the vast majority are like the one RGS points out.