James Carlson: 40-Year-Old Professional Agitator & One of Columbia’s ‘Student Protesters’

I have mentioned before that the majority of these protesters on college campuses have no idea why they are protesting.  A small number of them do know and then there are, of course, the paid provocateurs who come in to stir up and organize both the knowledgeable and the ignorant.  Enter James Carlson, a paid provocateur and one of the “protesters” at Columbia University.

Hugh Fitzgerald has the skinny on Mr. Carlson:

Between one-third and one-half of those “students” taking part at Columbia in the frenzied mob protests against Israel and for Hamas turn out not to be students at all, but older people, some of them professional left-wing agitators with long records of fomenting violence., and always eager to join any group of troublemakers willing to “stick it to the man.” Most often, nowadays the “man” in question is the “apartheid, settler-colonial, genocidal state” of Israel. More on James Carlson can be found here: “‘Violent’ Columbia protester is heir to ad empire, has mansion, model babymama — and long rap sheet,” by Tina Moore, Chris Harris and Matthew Sedacca, New York Post, May 4, 2024:

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One of the most violent leaders of the Columbia University riots is allegedly a professional agitator and limousine liberal — the scion of millionaire ad execs who owns in a $3.4 million Brooklyn townhouse, has a model babymama and a stepmom dating John Cougar Mellencamp.

James Carlson, aka Cody Carlson, aka Cody Tarlow, is “a longtime anarchist,” a high-ranking police source said.

He bought his 2,893-square-foot, three-story townhouse with four wood-burning fireplaces and a carriage house in Park Slope in 2019 for $2.3 million, according to property records and online listings….

Carlson is a trust-fund baby, living large with a likely net worth — extrapolating from value of his house — of at least ten million dollars. He doesn’t need a job, so why should he work? Instead, what fun it is for him to join whatever group is now causing the most mayhem and mischief. It gives him something to do, and allows him to believe that his life has a point after all — he is a true revolutionary, making the world a better place by whipping up others in whatever mob he has joined. In the present disarray, those “others” whom he eggs on are students at Columbia.

Carlson is a rabble rouser and an attorney by trade, according to sources.

He is certainly a rabble-rouser, but he will likely not be an “attorney by trade” much longer. He is almost certain to be disbarred after being arrested for taking part in the violent takeover of Hamilton Hall.

He is being looked at as a “possible leader” of the anti-Israel protesters who broke into Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall Tuesday night and barricaded themselves inside, a City Hall source said.

Emergency Services Unit cops used a military-style truck to get inside and arrest the rioters, including Carlson, early Wednesday morning. 

He was charged with burglary, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, conspiracy and criminal trespassing.

If he is convicted of even one of these charges, Carlson will be disbarred. But he doesn’t care; he has plenty to live on, thanks to his indulgent parents, without having to suffer the indignity of going to an office and actually working for a living.

“I observed the defendant inside the location with several other individuals,” a police officer wrote in the arrest report. “I did observe doors with shattered windows, doors off hinges, broken desks and exits blockaded by piled-up chairs.”

Carlson destroyed a camera inside a holding cell at One Police Plaza while he was in custody around 1 a.m., police sources said….

He can’t help himself. Carlson appears to be possessed by an obsessive will to destroy.

Carlson was among the anti-Israel protesters in January who wreaked havoc on the city by blocking traffic at the Holland Tunnel as well as the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges, a source said.

His rap sheet dates back to at least 2005, when he was charged in San Francisco for participating in the violent “West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8,” where protesters cracked a police officer’s skull, nearly killing him, and attempted to set a police cruiser ablaze, according to a City Hall source and  news reports.

Carlson was charged at the time with suspicion of attempted lynching, malicious mischief, battery to a police officer, aggravated assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon and willful resistance to a police officer that results in serious bodily injury, according to the source.

The charges were dropped in 2007, CNN reported.

Carlson is a serial menace, a violent man who joins whatever group is likely to provide him with the most convenient outlet for his violence and left-wingery. In 2005, he was engaged in “Anti-Capitalist Mobilization” (though the money he gets from his parents comes from their success in the capitalist advertising rat-race), and charged with “attempted lynching, malicious mischief, battery to a police officer, aggravated assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon.” Wasn’t all that enough to keep him in jail for a very long time? Apparently not. Nor was he in the least chastened by that experience. His latest display of mayhem on Morningside Heights, including his leading the assault on Hamilton Hall, is evidence of that.

Carlson has no known links to Columbia University. About 30% of those busted in the Hamilton Hall takeover were outside agitators, according to Columbia and Mayor Adams.

It is estimated that on the 43 Americans campuses where anti-Israel pro-Hamas demonstrations have so far taken place, between 30% and 50% of those taking part have no connection to the universities they are subjecting to such mayhem. The word is out: if you want to have fun chanting at the top of your lungs, destroying property, harassing Jewish students, this is your chance. James Carlson can say, just like the corrupt politician of Tammany Hall fame, George Washington Plunkitt, that “I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em.” Carlson will come out for any cause that will provide him with the virtue-signalling opportunity for the violent expression of his predictable left-wing views. Anti-capitalism in 2005, anti-Israel and pro-Hamas in 2024, and just as soon as he is let out of prison for his latest offenses, James Carlson will no doubt be found leading a group taking over and ransacking the offices of fossil fuel companies, as their way – the least convincing way — to protest global warming.

Article posted with permission from Sons of Liberty Media