Conservative activist James O’Keefe arrested outside high school
WESTCHESTER, NY -- On Wednesday afternoon, New Castle Town Police arrested the misogynist activist James O’Keefe outside Horace Greeley High School after students complained the rightwing provocateur had harassed them with his camera and tried to interfere in an election.
According to Chappaqua Central School District officials, O'Keefe started visiting the school on February 22, the day sophomores announced their candidacies for Junior Class President. Since then, administrators say O'Keefe has "haunted hallways like a tenacious ghost," visiting the high school "over a dozen times" in just the last week.
"We didn't know why he was here. He's 47 years old! Then, he injected himself into the race for junior class president," said Samantha Logan, a concerned math teacher.
Logan said O'Keefe seemed hellbent on preventing 16-year-old Sandra Cohen - the president of Horace Greeley's feminist student association - from achieving her dream of being elected to student government.
“It was just really strange,” said junior Fred Goldstein. “I mean the guy clearly wasn’t a student here because he’s positively ancient. Plus he seemed to be taking everything way too seriously. At one point, he started following Sandra around, accusing her of illegally distributing campaign buttons within 100 feet of the cafeteria.”
Suddenly on bathroom walls, students started seeing disturbing bumper stickers that read: "Sandra Cohen is a whore," "Sandra Cohen works for ACORN," and "Sandra Cohen is a Planned Parenthood abortion doctor."
Social Studies teacher and sophomore class adviser Stephen McMillan said, “I actually thought it was a prank at first,” said McMillan. “Not a hilarious prank. But the kind of stupid, trying-to-hard prank that juveniles get up to. But then O’Keefe just marched into my classroom last Thursday during third period and accused me of suppressing the vote for Robbie Holtz!"
Robbie Holtz is the quarterback running against Sandra Cohen.
McMillan continued: "The whole time that O'Keefe was yelling at me, he was holding his cell phone at an odd angle, almost as if he was recording me. I chose to ignore him. My students just laughed, and he stormed out of the room in a huff.”
Despite school administrators' repeated warnings to stay away from Horace Greeley, O’Keefe again chose to show up on Wednesday, prompting the school to contact local law enforcement. As police forcibly ejected O'Keefe from school grounds, O'Keefe reportedly began chanting, “Democracy dies at Greeley! Democracy dies at Greeley!”
O’Keefe will answer trespassing charges on April 5th at Westchester County Court.
