Kevin Allred, a Rutgers University adjunct professor, was reportedly taken to a New York hospital for a psych evaluation after police claimed he threatened to kill white people on Twitter. The comments — which were reportedly made on Twitter and in class — came just days after Donald Trump won the presidential election.
Allred, who teaches gender studies and made headlines earlier this year for his class “Feminist Perspectives: Politicizing Beyonce,” explained that the comments in question were nothing more than rhetorical political statements, and that school officials were trying to intimidate him for exercising his right to free speech.
“NYPD just came to my house bc [sic] Rutgers Police told them I’m a threat based on political statements I’ve made on campus and on Twitter,” he explained in a late-night Tweet Tuesday. “They’ve forced me to now undergo a psychiatric evaluation at the hospital. They brought me by ambulance tho [sic] I’m not under arrest technically.”
Allred elaborated that the comments he made were about the meaning behind burning the American flag and rhetorical questions about the second amendment. “I said: would conservatives care as much [about] the 2nd amendment if guns killed more white people?” he explained in a Tweet. “A question meant to expose double standard.”
According to the NYPD, campus cops asked doctor to conduct “a wellness check … on the professor based on comments he made in the classroom and on Twitter about killing white people.”
Allfred was loaded into an ambulance Tuesday night and taken to Bellevue Hospital in New York City for evaluation. He told the New York Daily News that he spent two hours at the hospital before doctors agreed that he had no psychological issues.
“The doctors were like, ‘This is ridiculous, why did they bring you here?’” Allred said. “And I said, ‘That’s what I thought, but they told me they had to do it.’”
Here’s his full tweet explanation:
Immediately after the election results were announced, Allred tweeted “If I see any Trump bumper stickers on the road today, my brakes will go out and I’ll run you off the road.” Another commenter pointed out that he “made murder threats” with the Tweet, “Will the 2nd amendment be as cool when I buy a gun and start shooting at random white people or no…?”
Rutgers spokesman E.J. Miranda said Wednesday the university’s police department “responded to a complaint from a student and took all appropriate action,” but the school would make no further comment.
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