Northeast
Campus 'occupation guide' taps into agitators' 'rage,' instructs how to 'escalate' chaos
FIRST ON FOX: Anti-Israel radicals on the University of Pennsylvania campus are passing around multiple guides directing agitators on how to break into buildings, “escalate” protests, create weapons and even administer first aid, documents exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital show.
“Let repression breed more resistance. We will not disavow any actions taken to escalate the struggle, including militant direct actions. Our notion of ‘safety’ in the imperial core is built on centuries of corpses, and this liberal framing of ‘safetyism’ prevents us from escalating and winning, which is our duty to Palestine and us all. We keep us safe by escalating. Don’t hesitate to take more risk,” one how-to guide dubbed “FLOOD THE GATES: ESCALATE” reads.
Fox News Digital obtained a 52-page document — which contains various guides for radicals — through a source with access to agitators on Penn’s campus.
The guides coach student agitators and outside radicals in how to build shields out of trash cans and how to most effectively barricade a door, while advising that bolt cutters are the best tool to cut padlocks, and angle grinders are best to slice through locks, bolts and chains.
‘SCREAMING AND CURSING’ ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS DESCEND ON SENATOR’S HOME MORE THAN A DOZEN TIMES
Anti-Israel agitators stage an encampment at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 25, 2024. The encampment is in solidarity with universities around the U.S. calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. (Thomas Hengge/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Use the straighter end of a crowbar to pry open windows and doors (such as in the hand over hand method). Use the slightly angled part as your fulcrum, pushing it against the window frame or door jamb,” the “Do-It-Yourself Occupation Guide 2024” describes. The guide informs agitators they shouldn’t pry a crowbar toward their face.
A university spokesman on Thursday declined comment to Fox News Digital when asked about the guides.
Penn, located in Philadelphia, is among the long list of schools nationwide where students and other radicals are staging anti-Israel protests, including setting up encampments. The “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on Penn’s campus was established more than a week ago, where students are demanding the school disclose its financial ties to Israel, divest from the country and provide protections for the protesters on campus, ABC 6 reported.
Screenshot from a guide for anti-Israel agitators obtained by Fox News Digital.
Student newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian reported Thursday that university officials had called on the Philadelphia Police Department to disband the encampment immediately, but that the department reportedly turned down the request as it has an agreement with the school’s police department to provide support “as needed,” and there was no imminent threat.
Anti-Israel students and faculty of Drexel University, Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania demonstrate as they spend the night where they erected an encampment at the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia on April 25, 2024. (MATTHEW HATCHER/AFP via Getty Images)
“The University has been managing an encampment and surrounding protests on our campus for several days,” a Penn spokesperson told the student newspaper in comment that was also provided to Fox News Digital. “Protest activity began to escalate overnight and has steadily continued, with large crowds in and around College Green today. We have reached out to the City of Philadelphia to ensure we have the necessary resources to keep our community safe.”
“The Mayor’s Office has asked for more information, and we’re providing it,” the statement continued.
The Philadelphia Police Department told Fox News Digital on Thursday when asked about the report and ongoing protests, that “our response will be based on the specific circumstances of each situation.”
“The PPD remains committed to facilitating safe demonstrations while ensuring the safety and upholding the First Amendment rights of all who live, work or visit our city. In line with this commitment, the Philadelphia Police Department maintains a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the University of Pennsylvania Police Department to ensure effective cooperation in situations requiring a police response. As per the MOU, the PPD will provide assistance to the UPPD as needed. However, for tactical purposes, we do not publicly discuss specific planning or engagement strategies related to ongoing situations,” a department spokesman continued.
NYPD RELEASE VIDEO SHOWING PROFESSIONAL ‘PROTEST CONSULTANT’ AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Anti-Israel students and faculty of Drexel University, Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania demonstrate as they spend night where they erected an encampment at the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia on April 25, 2024. (MATTHEW HATCHER/AFP via Getty Images))
The guides for the agitators, meanwhile, detail how to best handle injuries for when protests turn violent.
“Have medics both inside and outside the building. Medics should know about the needs of specific individuals involved in the action beforehand (medications, allergies, etc.). They should have a first aid kit. Anybody can be a street medic, but make attempts to contact RNs and EMTs,” one guide states.
The documents advise those who have been pepper sprayed to clean out their eyes with water, while counseling that rubber bullet wounds should be cleaned and sutured “for comrades who cannot be taken to the hospital.”
ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTS NATIONWIDE FUELED BY LEFT-WING GROUPS BACKED BY SOROS, DARK MONEY
Radicals are also coached to establish a “propaganda team” to disseminate press releases and work with the media.
“Have an initial statement prepared before the occupation is announced,” the guide advises on press releases. “Pour out your rage, but make sure you also provide a reasonable explanation for what you are doing, since many people will want to know why you did it. Do not have an official line. Do not prevent people from expressing themselves in their own way. Have people on hand to make and distribute flyers about what you are doing when the occupation takes place.”
Though the guide states that the agitators should establish a media team, it warns that one person should not be “branded” as the leader.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PROTESTS: REP. ELISE STEFANIK URGES TRUSTEES TO REMOVE SHAFIK AFTER MOB SEIZES BUILDING
“No particular individuals inside the occupation should become too visible, so as not to be branded as leaders. No one on the inside should give televised interviews, or any more information about themselves than necessary.”
NYPD officers arrest anti-Israel protestors as they block the roadways outside Senator Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn home in New York City on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
Student agitators have infiltrated college campuses nationwide in recent weeks, including radicals on Columbia University’s campus taking over the school’s Hamilton Hall building, while universities such as UCLA, Harvard and Yale are working to clear student encampments where protesters demand their elite schools completely divest from Israel.
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Columbia saw its occupation of Hamilton Hall cut short this week, when riot-clad NYPD officers stormed the building and cleared it in about two hours on Tuesday night.
Anti-Israel protesters hang signs from Columbia University in New York City on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)
The protests follow terrorist organization Hamas waging war on Israel on October 7, which initially fanned the flames of antisemitism on campuses in the form of protests, menacing graffiti and students reporting that they felt as if it was “open season for Jews on our campuses.” The protests have now heightened to the point where Jewish students have been warned to leave campus for their own safety.
The protests are associated with groups tied to far-left organizations backed by dark money and liberal mega-donor George Soros, Fox News Digital previously reported. Namely, the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) has had a large presence amid the protests on Columbia University’s campus, as well as on the campuses of UCLA, Tufts and the University of Texas at Austin.
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The grandson of an infamous mob boss was sentenced to prison on Monday after pleading guilty to defrauding the federal government out of more than $1 million in Covid relief funds, some of which he invested in cryptocurrency.
Carmine G. Agnello Jr., the grandson of John J. Gotti, the former leader of the Gambino crime family, was sentenced to 15 months in prison by Judge Nusrat J. Choudhury in Federal District Court in Central Islip, N.Y. She also ordered Mr. Agnello to pay $1.3 million in restitution to the Small Business Administration.
Mr. Agnello, 39, fidgeted in court on Monday. Some of his family members were in attendance, including mob figures previously convicted of federal crimes: his father Carmine (the Bull) Agnello and his uncle John A. Gotti.
Wearing a gray, checkered suit, Mr. Agnello read a brief statement in court calling his crime “wrong, selfish and criminal.” He added that he never wanted to “find myself in prison” like so many of his relatives.
“I regret not only what I did, but the disappointment I caused my family,” he said.
Starting in April 2020, Mr. Agnello applied for at least three loans for his Queens-based company, Crown Auto Parts & Recycling L.L.C., through a program meant to support small businesses hurt by the pandemic.
He applied for the loans under false pretenses, claiming he did not have a criminal record when he in fact did have one, prosecutors said. He then used more than $400,000 of the borrowed money to invest in a crypto business.
Mr. Agnello pleaded guilty in September 2024 to a single count of wire fraud. Federal prosecutors with the Eastern District of New York had sought a sentence of around three years, as well as $1.3 million in restitution.
He “shamefully lined his own pockets with government and taxpayers’ dollars,” Joseph Nocella Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
As a child, Mr. Agnello starred on the reality television show “Growing Up Gotti” alongside his mother, Victoria Gotti, and two brothers, Frank and John. The show, which ran on A&E for three seasons and was canceled in 2005, depicted a Long Island household in the milieu of “The Sopranos.”
At the time, Mr. Agnello’s father was in prison and had been divorced from Ms. Gotti, a former columnist for The New York Post, leaving her to raise three rowdy sons. The intense media focus on the Gottis gave the grandson “a distorted sense of reality,” wrote John A. Gotti, Mr. Agnello’s uncle and the leader of the crime family in the 1990s, in a letter to Judge Choudhury before the sentencing.
“Being part of the Gotti family meant growing up with too much attention, expectations and society’s judgment that most kids never have to deal with,” Mr. Gotti wrote. He added that his nephew faced pressure “to live up to the Gotti name.”
Mr. Agnello found his way into the family business, in a way. In 2018, he pleaded guilty to running an unregistered scrap business. That case echoed his father’s racketeering conviction after he firebombed a rival scrap company in Queens that was run by undercover police officers.
Mr. Agnello’s grandfather exercised power with unrelenting brutality and delighted in the spotlight. He seized control of the family by organizing the 1985 assassination of his predecessor, Paul Castellano, before running enterprises that investigators estimated earned about $500 million a year from ventures that included extorting unions, illegal gambling, loan-sharking and stock fraud.
After numerous acquittals in state and federal trials, aided by juries that had been tampered with, Mr. Gotti earned the nickname “Teflon Don” from New York City’s tabloids. He was ultimately convicted in 1992 on 13 criminal counts and died of cancer in 2002 at age 61 in a federal prison hospital.
Jeffrey Lichtman, a lawyer for Mr. Agnello, told Judge Choudhury that Mr. Agnello had grown up with no male role models in his life, as 15 of his family members had gone to prison, including his grandfather when he was 5 and his father when he was 14.
Mr. Lichtman, who also represented Mr. Agnello’s uncle, called his client’s crime “horrific behavior” but added that his conduct was inevitable.
Charles P. Kelly, a federal prosecutor, said in court on Monday that Mr. Agnello’s family history was no excuse for his fraud.
“This case is not about John Gotti; it’s about Carmine Agnello,” Mr. Kelly said.
This year, Steven Metcalf, another lawyer for Mr. Agnello, asked Judge Choudhury for a sentence with no prison time so that Mr. Agnello could donate a kidney to his mother, who has renal disease and also appeared in court on Monday. Without the transplant, Ms. Gotti could die during her son’s prison term, Mr. Metcalf said.
But in April, Mr. Agnello hired Mr. Lichtman, who apologized to the judge for Mr. Metcalf’s “voluminous argument” in support of Mr. Agnello, which stretched hundreds of pages.
As Judge Choudhury announced the sentence, Mr. Agnello kept his gaze forward and nodded. Judge Choudhury pushed back on the notion that his upbringing drove him to commit wire fraud.
“You were raised with access to opportunities. These are opportunities that many people in our society do not have,” she said.
After the sentence on Monday, Mr. Agnello embraced his family members in a hallway of the courthouse, one by one, kissing his uncle and his father on the cheek. He must surrender to the authorities to begin serving his prison term by July 20.
Outside the courthouse, his uncle John A. Gotti addressed a group of reporters.
“We had 15 members of our family who went to prison,” he said. “I think that’s enough. I think we did our time.”
SALT LAKE CITY — Up until the past month or so, Clayton Young wasn’t sure if he’d make it to the starting line of the 130th Boston Marathon.
By Monday afternoon, he was walking away from the course with a stunning new personal best.
Young finished the 26.2-mile point-to-point course in a personal-record time of 2 hours, 5 minutes and 41 seconds Monday, good for 11th place in an all-time year. Zouhair Talbi ran the fastest time ever by an American, finishing fifth overall in 2:03:45 and Jess McClain broken the American women’s record in 2:20:49.
In all, seven American men and 12 American women finished in the top 20 of the prestigious marathon — including Young, whose streak of six consecutive top-10 finishes dating back to 2023 (including the Paris Olympics) ended, albeit barely.
But donning the No. 24 bib and a brand-new kit for new sponsor Brooks, the former BYU national champion who prepped at American Fork High jumped into the lead pack from the start and never looked back as he broke his previous lifetime best set from the 2023 Chicago marathon and the Olympic trials nearly a year later by close to 3 seconds.
“With only nine weeks of training. … I was really happy to be a 2:05 guy,” Young told FloTrack after the race. “Obviously, falling outside the top 10 is a little disappointing, but I’m really happy with the time.”
The final finish was only the faintest disappointment in the incredibly fast field.
Young’s finish as the third fastest American on Monday marks the fifth-fastest time by an American man all-time in Boston. Charles Hicks finished 50 seconds behind Talbi in 2:04:35, with Young coming in just over a minute later to cheers of friends and family.
His former BYU teammate, Canadian international Rory Linkletter, finished 14th with a personal-best time of 2:06:04. Former BYU runner Michael Ottesen finished 52nd in 2:16:06, and Utah resident Todd Garner finished his 11th running of the Boston Marathon all-time in 3:14:35.
“I think we’re in an era in distance running, on the men and women’s sides, but especially the women’s side, where we’re all making each other so much better every time we line up with one another,” McClain told the Associated Press. “And I think it’s just going to get stronger and stronger.”
Former Utah Valley and BYU runner Kodi Kleven finished 14th in the women’s race with a personal-best time of 2:24:48. The three-time St. George marathon course record holder from Mount Pleasant led for large portions of the race en route to her qualifying time for the 2026 U.S. Olympic marathon trials.
Former BYU standout and Utah State coach Madey Dickson, who also runs trains locally with Run Elite Program, beat her previous personal record in 2:28:12 — good for 18th in the women’s race.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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