Following a rally against vaccine mandates that occurred Saturday September 18th at The State Theater, Ithaca Tenant’s Union members Genevieve Rand and Keem/ “Meek” Adams are fundraising based on a hate crime they claim occurred during the event. Adams & Rand’s own social media posts contradict the claim of a hate crime occurring during the rally. An event participant says the alleged hate crime is “complete and total nonsense.”
Adams’ claim of assault is undermined by his own social media posts which show a very narrow window for the alleged attack to have occurred. Adams’ claim of being attacked by participants in the Anti-Vaccine Mandate Rally is also highly suspect due to his shift from a third person to first person account of the supposed assault. A rally participant’s account, video of the rally and a lack of corroborating eyewitnesses also undermine his claim of victimization. An Instagram post seeking to raise funds on his behalf claims he needs money for “food, therapy and medical bills.” Adams has produced no evidence he was assaulted.
Adams first became aware of the impending rally at about 4:20 PM, tweeting “NO FUCKING WAY! THEY ARE HAVING ANTI-VAXX RALLY OUTSIDE MY FUCKING HOUSE.” Adams observed the group from his apartment in a video he posted at 7:21 PM. At 7:33 PM Adams tweeted “Antivaxer harassed a mother and her 14 yr old child.” Adams first video from the street level was posted at 7:38 PM, with Adams critiquing the rally participant’s chant.
A social media post at 8:15 PM Saturday evening shows the Anti-Mandate rally partially up The Commons. Shortly thereafter the Anti-Mandate rally appears to have successfully reached Restaurant Row on Aurora St. It was at 8:25 PM Adams tweeted “I just watched an antivaxxer white man cough on a black then proceed to fight him in the streets punching him in the face multiple times!”
At 9:33 PM Adams tweeted “Never felt like less of a human being than today.” It was not until early the next morning Adams first mentioned being a victim directly. At 3:56 AM Sunday morning Meek tweeted “Getting hate crimed is fucking with my mental more than I thought it would”.
At 7:41 AM Sunday the 19th Genevieve Rand responded to Adams on Twitter, “what happened are you ok?”
By approximately 9:20 PM on the 19th the Cornell Abolitionist Revolutionary Society (CARS) was promoting a post on Instagram claiming Adams was “assaulted by neo nazis last night at an anti vax protest”. Genevieve Rand later tweeted out a screen shot of the CARS Instagram post, further embellishing “My friend got beat up by racists at an antivax rally last week and temporarily can’t work as a result of his injuries.” Following a request for funds, Rand advised to “Stay alert for more rallies.”
A rally participant calls Rand & Adams account of a racist assault “completely preposterous.”
“At least fifty people were in line at The State Theater. The police were on The Commons. They would have done something. Nothing like that happened.”
“The rally was anti vaccine mandate. Not anti vax. You shouldn’t have to reveal personal health information.”
In a video posted to social media one rally participant stated via a bullhorn on Aurora Street’s Restaurant Row “We are a group of vaccinated and unvaccinated people standing together against mandates. We’re here against mandates. We’re not here against vaccinations. Just so we’re clear.” Signs held by the group read ‘My Body, My Choice’ & ‘COVID-19 Vaccine makers are exempt from liability.’ Vaccine manufacturers are shielded from liability from side effects caused by their products.
Rand’s admonition to “Stay alert for more rallies” and her false characterization of the Anti-Mandate Rally participants as “racists” is particularly ominous given her role in orchestrating pervious violent protests and counter-protests. These incidents include the roadblock of an elderly couple on Clinton St. in front of the Ithaca Police Department on August 30th of 2020 as well as the attack on the GOP office that shut down Route 13 on October 16th and the subsequent attack on Tom Reed’s press conference that culminated in Rand’s arrest at IPD on Oct. 22nd, 2020.