College Republicans at University of California, Berkeley say Antifa activists disrupted a vigil for Kate Steinle, taking down the poster with her picture on it and throwing it in the trash.
Steinle was shot and killed as she walked on a San Francisco pier in July 2015. The shooter, an illegal immigrant who had been deported multiple times, was acquitted of murder and involuntary manslaughter in a trial that put illegal immigration and sanctuary cities in the spotlight, Fox News reports.
On Thursday, members of the Berkeley College Republicans held a candlelit vigil for Steinle. After the vigil, they left behind flowers, candles that spelled out “KATE” and a poster with her image on it.
Before dawn, the poster had been taken down and put in the trash.
Last night we held a candlelight vigil in honor of Kate Steinle. This morning someone tore up our poster of her and threw it in the trash. This is typical at @UCBerkeley, where honoring the legacy of someone who was killed by a 7-time felon and 5-time deportee is offensive. pic.twitter.com/e8yNjL93u1
— Berkeley College Republicans (@BerkeleyCRs) December 9, 2017
On “Fox & Friends,” Troy Worden, a member of the Berkeley College Republicans and a Campus Reform correspondent, said that most of the mainstream media has forgotten about Steinle, so they wanted to hold a vigil to honor her memory.
“Normally, vigils aren’t contentious at UC Berkeley. You can pretty much wave an ISIS flag around on campus, and no one will bat an eye,” Worden said.
Yet, he said, their Steinle vigil was quickly met by protests from Antifa activists, who interrupted the event and called those honoring Steinle “racists and bigots.”
Beautiful candlelight vigil for Kate Steinle hosted by the @BerkeleyCRs. Proud we were able to provide our community this opportunity to come together and grieve. Others thought it was appropriate to take this opportunity to call us Nazis, fascists, and KKK. pic.twitter.com/m98DlpTpdC
— Bradley Devlin (@bradleydevlin) December 8, 2017
“Our message of honoring Kate was totally lost in this protest,” Worden said, noting that they had previously put up posters of Steinle on campus only to have them almost immediately taken down.
“There are people at Berkeley who are basically hellbent on stopping any kind of memorial for this victim of illegal immigration.”