FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 03/21/2016
CONTACT:
Antonia Okafor, Southwest Regional Director, Students for Concealed Carry (SCC): antonia.okafor@concealedcampus.org
Michael Newbern, Assistant Director of Public Relations: michael.newbern@concealedcampus.org
HOUSTON, TX – Alex J. Colvin, the founder, president, and lone spokesperson for Gun Free UH (University of Houston), has built a well-publicized anti-campus carry campaign on a series of ad hominem attacks and conspiracy theories regarding Students for Concealed Carry; however, Colvin, a 57-year-old UH undergraduate, may not be the best poster boy for the anti-campus carry movement, given that he was arrested in 2001—at the age of 42—for battery of a 19-year-old woman.
According to police records obtained by Students for Concealed Carry, Mr. Colvin was arrested shortly after midnight on July 4, 2001, at the home of a neighbor, in Clearwater, Fla. The report filed by the responding officer from the Clearwater Police Department reads as follows (NOTE: all names except for Mr. Colvin’s have been redacted):
Upon arrival, I spoke with the complaintant [sic], Alex Colvin. Colvin was very intoxicated and was hard to understand. Colvin’s speech was slurred and he was having trouble standing. Colvin stated that his neighbor, [alleged victim], sprayed him with pepper spray. Colvin stated [alleged victim] did this, while he was standing on his patio. Colvin stated that he did not do anything to [alleged victim].
I spoke with [alleged victim] and she gave me the following statement. [Alleged victim] said that Colvin kept coming over to [first witness]‘s apartment. [Alleged victim] stated that Colvin was asked to leave several times. Colvin threw a drink on the back door of the apartment and then later threw a glass at [alleged victim]. Colvin came back to the apartment and [alleged victim] told him he could not come in. [Alleged victim] was standing in front of Colvin on the patio. Colvin started walking towards [alleged victim]. [Alleged victim] told Colvin to stay back or she would spray him with pepper spray. [Alleged victim] told Colvin this several times. Colvin grabbed [alleged victim] and pushed her and she fell backwards. [Alleged victim] then sprayed Colvin with pepper spray. Colvin left the patio and went back to his apartment.
I spoke with [second witness] and he stated that Colvin was harrassing [sic] [alleged victim]. Colvin kept coming at her in a threatening manner. [Alleged victim] told Colvin several times to stay back or she would spray him. Colvin grabbed [alleged victim] by her arms and pushed her backwards. [Alleged victim] then sprayed Colvin.
[Alleged victim] stated that she just wanted Colvin to stay away from her and her friends. [Alleged victim] stated that if Colvin would leave her alone, she did not want to prosecute. Colvin was advised to stay away from [alleged victim] and her friends. Officers cleared from the scene.
At 0045 hours, Officers were sent back to the above address, because Colvin had returned to [first witness]‘s apartment. I spoke with [first witness] and he stated that Colvin knocked on his back door. [First witness] opened the door and Colvin walked into his apartment. Colvin would not leave and needed to be pushed out the door. Colvin was trheatening [sic] to harm [alleged victim].
[Alleged victim] advised officers that she wanted to press charges against Colvin for the initial battery. I attempted to speak with Colvin, but he was too intoxicated to talk. Colvin was arrested for battery and transported to Pinellas County Jail. Colvin was turned over to PCSO.
Three months after this incident, the charges against Mr. Colvin were dropped because the assistant state’s attorney felt there was “insufficient evidence” to secure a conviction. However, that is of little comfort to SCC Southwest Regional Director Antonia Okafor, with whom Mr. Colvin seems to have an unhealthy obsession.
Ms. Okafor commented, “Now that I know about Mr. Colvin’s checkered past, the fact that he’s practically stalking me on social media is downright scary. Men like him are the very reason I shouldn’t be denied the means to protect myself on campus.”
Michael Newbern, assistant director of public relations for SCC, added, “I think it’s quite telling that Mr. Colvin uses his Facebook and Twitter accounts to target SCC’s female directors while leaving the male directors alone. Like criminals, bullies target people they view as weak. One of the reasons I joined SCC was to ensure that the type of demented coward who would attack an unarmed woman will no longer have a government guarantee that law-abiding women are, in fact, disarmed.”
Mr. Colvin’s questionable past, vitriolic tweets, and angry comments seem to hint at issues that run much deeper than opposition to campus carry. His attitude toward proponents of campus carry exhibits symptoms of psychological projection. A 2004 article by Toronto psychiatrist Brad Bowins, published in The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, explains, “Projection alters experience such that it is believed that unacceptable impulses and attitudes arise not from the self but from an outside object. Hence, aggressive urges are perceived and re-acted to as coming from someone else when they are really your own.” The article goes on to note, “The cognitive distortion…serves to diminish responsibility and acceptance of impulses, affect, and ideas.”
Okafor concluded, “We can’t help but wonder if Mr. Colvin’s fear of concealed handgun license holders—whom he describes as ‘cowards, sociopaths, antisocials, and malcontents’—isn’t a projection of his own violent urges and personal shortcomings onto those of us who simply want to enjoy the same measure of personal protection on campus that we already enjoy virtually everywhere else.”
SCC’s Feb. 2016 – March 2016 Texas press releases are posted here: http://tinyurl.com/scc-press-releases
SCC’s May 2015 – Jan. 2016 Texas press releases are posted to SCC’s main website/blog here: http://www.ConcealedCampus.org
SCC’s Dec. 2014 – April 2015 Texas press releases are included in SCC’s 2015 Texas legislative handout, which is embed here: http://www.whycampuscarry.com/the-facts.html
