A firebrand anti-gentrification activist doubled down on her campaign to smear a Prospect-Lefferts Gardens blogger as a racist by organizing a new public protest against him — and the founder of a self-described gang with ties to white-supremacist organizations, as well as the white Ditmas Park woman recently scorned by Internet users for falsely reporting a black boy for sexual harassment.
Alicia Boyd, who recently used racially based accusations in a failed attempt to force citizen journalist Tim Thomas to shutter his blog “Q at Parkside,” on Wednesday announced a Nov. 3 march against “racism and white supremacy” targeted at the writer; “Proud Boys” founder Gavin McInnes, whose alt-right followers violently clashed with protesters after he appeared at a Manhattan Republican club last week; and Theresa Klein, the woman christened “Cornerstore Caroline” by netizens after video of her reporting the boy for allegedly “grabbing her a–” went viral.
And Thomas, believe it or not, supports Boyd’s First Amendment right to accuse him of any vile behavior she wants — he just wishes she’d pick better company for him, he said.
“It’s a little hard to see my face lumped in with that f—– scumbag,” Thomas said in reference to McInnes, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a bigot, misogynist, and Islamophobe who incites violence. “But I don’t know what to say. I’ve been free with my opinions, she’s been free with hers.”
Boyd shared news of the march with members of her anti-gentrification group Movement to Protect the People weeks after she threatened to stage a similar protest targeting Thomas at an event hosted by his employer, which led him to temporarily shut his blog down and publicly apologize to the activist for his alleged racism in what he later admitted was a ruse to get her to call off the demonstration.
Thomas, who returned to posting on his website days after his pseudo surrender, and his lawyer subsequently met with the district attorney’s office about a potential blackmail case against Boyd, providing as evidence an e-mailed list of demands she forced him to comply with in order to stop her earlier protest.
And prosecutors have since indicated a willingness to pursue charges against Boyd, according to the blogger’s lawyer Joyce David, who declined to discuss the pair’s legal strategy in further detail, and noted her client hasn’t decided if he wants to press charges.
“We did meet with the DA,” David said. “It was a very productive meeting.”
The saga earned Thomas enormous support from his fellow Prospect-Lefferts Gardeners, many of whom left comments cheering him and decrying his rival’s cutthroat tactics on an invite-only Facebook group for neighborhood residents, David said.
And that support hasn’t gone unnoticed by Boyd, who in her e-mail announcing the upcoming march — which currently does not have a set location — accused the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and Ditmas Park Facebook groups of “fueling the fires of white supremacy” over the past five years amid an “influx of new white residents” to the areas.
David also floated the idea of organizing a counter protest to Boyd’s, during which she suggested locals could rally in defense of her client — but in opposition to McInnes and Klein, whom she called the real bad guys.
“We support the protest for the other two people,” the attorney said. “It’s very petty for Alicia to include Tim there, it diminishes the real issue.”
