After the incident involving threatening a New York Post reporter, artist Shellyne Rodriguez was arrested on Thursday.
On Thursday morning, Rodriguez was arrested from her apartment in the Bronx, New York. The NYPD spokesperson said that she has been charged with misdemeanor counts of harassment and menacing. She was also released on bail the same day.
The incident in question occurred on Tuesday when NYP reporter Reuvan Fenton visited Rodriguez’s apartment to interview her. The interview was supposedly related to a viral video where Shellyne Rodriguez was teaching a class at Hunter College. In the video, she seemed to aggressively tell the students that they were being taught “propaganda” while pointing toward certain materials. The video was later shared by right-wing publications like Fox News and Breitbart.
Fenton alleges that despite him identifying himself as a reported to Shellyne Rodriguez, she raised a machete and threatened him. The New York Post ran an article about it the same day. A spokesperson for the artist later claimed that the reporter and the cameraman did not identify themselves when they entered the building, thus trespassing on her property.
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As the news gained traction, Rodriguez also felt the repercussion of her actions. On Thursday, Hunter College – where she served as an adjunct professor – fired her, while condemning her behavior. Rodriguez, in turn, alleged that the school had fallen to “racists, white nationalists, and misogynists.” Today morning, the School of Visual Arts also announced that they would not renew her contract as an adjunct professor.
