It’s not immediately clear from the video what the book was. The man, who identified himself as John Williams, invites witnesses in his speech to believe the book is a copy of the Quran.
When he begins tearing pages, he was pushed or punched back, apparently by a spectator. Campus police quickly surrounded him. He regained his footing and resumed tearing pages, shouting derogatory remarks about Islam, the video shows.
Campus police escorted him to his car, Wright State Police Chief David Finnie said, because police knew students were upset with him. There were no arrests. No one was injured.
“To my knowledge, in my 16, 17 years here, I’ve never seen that,” he said. “Our role here was simple. First of all, we support people expressing their First Amendment rights. There’s no better place than an academic setting.”
Finnie said there’s nothing new about public speakers on the quad.
Ismail Gula, president of the Islamic Center of Peace who is a University of Dayton graduate and former UD instructor, said, “These kinds of people are everywhere. You have them. We have them. Everybody has them.
“That action is not accepted by any decent human being,” said Gula, a Dayton resident. “We are here. We have the right to believe whatever we want to believe. We respect each other. But we don’t have to provoke and promote hate and promote violence and all of that.”
Williams said, “Sometimes it takes a radical approach to get people’s attention. We’re just fishing for souls out there.”
He said he bought the book at a bookstore near WSU. A spectator in the video can be seen retrieving a page torn from the book and telling Williams that since the book is translated from Arabic into English, it’s not the Quran.
Williams said the incident happened Sept. 15. He was at WSU last year, as well, and has been there “several times.” He said he is part of an organization he calls “Official Street Preachers” whose members visit college campuses and employ “confrontational evangelism” when preaching. “We confront people in their sins,” he said.
Williams said he has visited the University of Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky University and other campuses and used the same book last week at both of those universities.
He said WSU campus police asked him for the book and he agreed to temporarily give it to them if they would escort him to his vehicle. Police said they returned the book to him after the escort.
A WSU spokesman said Williams is not a Wright State student or “a member of the WSU community.”
The incident triggered an community-wide email from WSU President David Hopkins.
“His actions are a reminder to all of us that we have a great responsibility in higher education to be the change that we seek in the world,” Hopkins wrote.
EARLIER REPORT
A video has surfaced on YouTube showing a man on the campus of Wright State University tearing up a book appearing to be the Quran and a physical confrontation caused police to intervene.
“If they’re inciting riots with their speech, if they’re going to damage property or hurt people, then we will intervene and shut down the event,” WSU Police Chief David Finnie said, referring to public speakers who frequent the university.
According to Finnie, the speakers are permitted in the university’s “Quad” area and long as their message is general in nature.
“They’ll come out and express their ideas and ideals to the campus community,” Finnie said.
Finnie said the man in the video, who is not a Wright State student, did stay within his First Amendment rights of free speech and he was not arrested. The man, who has not been identified, did request a police escort to his vehicle after the incident, Finnie said.
The incident in the video occurred on the campus sometime last week.
News Center 7’s Andy Sedlak is working this story and will have more reaction from the campus community beginning at 5 p.m. on News Center 7.