Ward Churchill's days in Illinois and his Weather Underground ties

Cross-posted on Marathon Pundit.

See that picture? That's Richard J. Elrod. He's been partially paralyzed since 1969 after suffering a broken neck. More on him later.

Last week I had a couple of posts about the husband-and-wife professors who were formerly members of the 1960s domestic terror organization, the Weather Underground.

The professors are Bernardine Dohrn of Northwestern University and Bill Ayers of the University of Illinois-Chicago.

On October 8, 1969, The Weather Underground decided to jumpstart the "People's Revolution," in Chicago. They blew up a statue of a policeman (that statue was a memorial to eight Chicago cops killed in the 1886 Haymarket Riots), and smashed up some boutique windows in the city's Gold Coast neighborhood.

About the name, the Weather Underground: The group was initially known as "The Weatherman," a lyric in Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" had this phrase:

You don't need to be a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Chicago was a logical choice for the WU, as many of the members had ties to the area. It sure as heck made it convenient for Ward Churchill of Elmwood, IL to join in on the riots.

Yes, it's the same Ward Churchill we all know and love.

Last fall, Ward spoke at Chicago's DePaul University, the reverberations from that visit are still being felt by the Chicago college--such as the FIRE blowing the whistle on DePaul for squelching the free speech rights of the DePaul College Republicans.

Friend-of-the-blog, DePaul student, and blogger in his own right Nick Hahn was a guest on KHOW-Denver's Caplis & Silverman radio show in October. Nick talked about--a week before the Ward appearance--the difficulties his group was already facing in the attempts of the DePaul CRs to protest the phony Indian Churchill.

Dan Caplis (whose father was a DePaul Blue Demon hoopster coached by the legendary Ray Meyer), then played a tape of Ward Churchill bragging about resisting arrest in Chicago--based on Caplis' comments, that event could've only been during the Days of Rage protest. A proud Ward commented that while resisting arrest, he attacked a Chicago police officer and "rammed his head into a concrete post."

Since this article appeared on Marathon Pundit, it has come to my attention that it's possible Caplis may have, I repeat, may have erred here. It could be that he may have been talking about a Peoria incident. On a separate MP post, commenter "Michele" offered this discovery:

I looked up Ward Churchill's criminal record at the Peoria courthouse. He had two misdemeanor charges in 1972 resulting from either one or two incidents on April 18, 1972.

Peoria County Sheriff's Det. Thomas Schuettler complained that Ward Churchill alias 'Ward Debo' alias 'John Doe' (1) commited assault, in that he grabbed the detective by the arm, placing in apprehension of receiving a battery; and (2) resisted a peace officer by struggling with the detective and then running from the officer after being placed under arrest.

Case (1) was dismissed for want of prosecution. Case (2) was dismissed after a motion by Churchill's attorney, Louis Olivero, for the state to produce evidence.

Don't believe me about Caplis' comments? Below is the audio transcript, courtesy of Nick's My Political Agenda blog:

Right click on the link to download and listen. Although the entire transcript is worth listening to, the segment I'm referring to is at the halfway point.

http://www.videos.mjsfc.com/10-11-05p1.mp3

Caplis adds some context to Churchill's comments. In that sound bite of Ward speaking about his assault on the cop, Churchill boasted that, according to Dan Caplis, that the riots (but not Ward) "put the sheriff in a wheelchair for life--in Chicago."

That sheriff was future Cook County Sheriff Richard J. Elrod. Chicago police were chasing one of those Days of Rage protesters, the cops asked Elrod to "Stop him," Elrod did, but suffered a broken neck as he sucessfully tackled the rioter. Elrod has walked only with the assistance of canes ever since.

And Ward Churchill brags about something like that. And yes, Ward didn't seem too upset about bashing the head of that Chicago police officer into a concrete post--his violent contribution to the Days of Rage.

Another friend-of-the-blog, Bill Baar, posted this comment about the Weather Underground on Illinoize, a blog I contribute to:

I remember the old SDS Weatherman song about Richard Elrod, the City Attorney who tackled Weathermen Brian Sullican (note Bill sent a correction, Brian Flannigan was the name of the creep) during the days-of-rage leaving Elrod badly injured.

It was sung to the tune of Lay-Lady-Lay (my note, that's right, another Dylan song) and went,

Lay Elrod Lay,
Lay in Iron Lung,

Stay Elrod stay,
Stay in your bed a while,

and then went into some refrain about the People's Army being a push over or something.

Pretty ugly song sung by some ugly people.

That's not all on Ward Churchill and the Weather Underground. From the Rocky Mountain News last year:

The professor has a long history of controversial remarks, including telling a local newspaper in 1987 that he taught the Weather Underground how to make bombs, the Daily Camera said earlier this month.

Ward Churchill. Bill Ayers. Bernardine Dohrn. All tenured university professors.

I don't need to be a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows, either.

And that wind is carrying a foul stench.