BCR, Identity Europa rallying tonight at Sproul Plaza

Through previous statements to various media outlets, the Steinle family has emphasized that they do want want their personal tragedy to be used for political purposes. In San Francisco, a memorial for Kate Steinle was created by the pro-fascist organization Identity Europa. At the request of the Steinle family, the memorial was removed by SF city workers. The grieving family don't want Kate Steinle to be associated with Far Right ideology.

Tonight (Thursday Dec 7th) at 6:30PM, the Berkeley College Republicans and Identity Europa will attempt to create a new "memorial" for Steinle at Sproul Plaza. BCR became associated with Identity Europa in 2016. BCR recently had a election of new leadership. It was believed that the current BCR president Bradley Devlin was going to steer their club away from the Alt-Right politics which the previous club president embraced. Despite Devlin's claims that BCR was going to go in a new direction, BCR is still openly associating with Identity Europa.

Naweed Tahmas, an "officer" of the Berkeley College Republicans was interviewed by KTVU. In the interview, Tahmas was asked if BCR would honor the Steinle family's request that Kate Steinle's death not be politicized. Tahmas ignored the question, and did not state that BCR would honor the request. The KTVU interviewer pointed out that on social media BCR was promoting their rally with slogans like "Kate's Wall" and "Kate's Law", and that it appears BCR is indeed politicizing Kate Steinle's death. When asked if BCR had invited the Cal Democrats to participate in the rally, Tahmas admitted they hadn't, which reinforces the notion that the rally is a Far Right political event.

It is clear that tonight's rally is not a genuine memorial. The intentions of BCR and Identity Europa appear to be to create a provocative spectacle, promote Alt-Right politics, and to rile counter-protesters. It can be surmised that they also want to create a so-called "memorial" on the steps of Sproul, so they can capture footage of UC Berkeley workers inevitably dismantling it.