Missouri Republican lawmakers on Monday renewed a call for the University of Missouri to fire Melissa Click, the assistant professor caught on video calling for “muscle” to remove a student journalist from a protest area last November. Several lawmakers spoke out on social media after a second video of Click surfaced last week, this one showing her confronting Columbia police during an earlier protest at a homecoming parade through the streets of the the city last fall. The video, captured by police body cameras, was posted to The Columbia Missourian’s YouTube channel. It shows an agitated Click twice confronting police who were moving a group of predominantly black protesters off the streets. Protesters had blocked then-university system President Tim Wolfe’s red convertible. While the audio is unclear, The Missourian said Click used curse words the second time she talked to police. “I am sorry I cursed at a police officer while trying to keep the peace during the students’ demonstrations at the Homecoming parade,” Click said, expressing “regret” in a statement sent to The Star by Status Labs, the Texas company working with Click trying to restore her reputation. “I felt afraid for the students, who were being threatened with pepper spray and taunted by parade spectators.” She said she was drawn to stand in solidarity with protesters “because of their moving message of racial exclusion and the angry responses of the onlookers.” Sen. Kurt Schaefer, a Columbia Republican, and Sen. Eric Schmitt, a St. Louis Republican, used Twitter to comment on the statement that interim Chancellor Hank Foley released on Sunday after the Click video was posted. In the statement, Foley called Click’s conduct in the second homecoming video “appalling.” “Like many in our community, I watched newly released footage of Dr. Melissa Click directing a verbal assault against members of the Columbia Police Department during the homecoming parade in October 2015,” Foley said in the statement posted to the MU News Bureau.
Prof Click knew she was being filmed on a body camera, and there was absolutely no need to curse on the film that was captured. she knew exactly what she was doing and she needs to accept the consequences for it instead of trying to apologize her way out.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/interim-chancellor-calls-latest-melissa-click-video-appalling/article_45f0b1fb-0a5f-5154-a4f0-7f45b324b17b.html
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