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Update: AC360 does a great job summarizing the case and bringing to light the fact that Chris Armstrong isn’t the first young person that Andrew Shirvell has targeted.
Well it took long enough, but outgoing Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox finally got it through his thick skull that his employee, the anti-gay stalker Andrew Shirvell, should be fired. Shirvell had been stalking and harassing Chris Armstrong, the University of Michigan’s student body president, calling him a Nazi, a radical homosexual activist, racist and liar. Today’s Detroit Free Press reports:
The firing was confirmed in a statement this afternoon from AG Mike Cox, who said Shirvell was fired for conduct unbecoming a state employee, especially that of an assistant attorney general.
Ya think?
“To be clear, I refuse to fire anyone for exercising their First Amendment rights, regardless of how popular or unpopular their positions might be. However, Shirvell repeatedly violated office policies, engaged in borderline stalking behavior, and inappropriately used state resources, our investigation showed.”Among the examples cited by Cox in the statement:
• Showed up at the home of a private citizen three times, including once at 1:30 a.m. That incident is especially telling because it clearly was about harassing Armstrong, not engaging in free speech.
• Further engaged in behavior that, while not perhaps sufficient to charge criminal stalking, was harassing, uninvited and showed a pattern that was in the everyday sense, stalking.
• Harassing Armstrong’s friends as they were socializing in Ann Arbor;
• Numerous calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, Armstrong’s employer, in an attempt to slander Armstrong – and ultimately attempting to cause Pelosi to fire Armstrong;
• Attempting to “out” Armstrong’s friends as homosexual – several of whom were not gay.
And he did some of this while on the clock as an Assistant Attorney General, oops. Shirvell also lied during his disciplinary hearing, the report says. That must have made it impossible for A.G. Cox to protect the poor little homobigot any longer.
Shirvell’s lawyer made a last grab for parting pity points, saying
“There’s been a tremendous piling on against Andrew. The liberal media started this tempest in a teapot.”“Andrew’s reaction is that he’s devastated over the loss of his employment,” Thomas said.
Quick, somebody call Shirvell a waaaambulance.
6 Comments
This ends with him attempting to murder Chris Armstrong.He’ll likely be disbarred, as well, as he should be. His entire career will be destroyed forever, he’s already the laughingstock/object of pity and/or hate of the entire country — what’s to live for? 99.9% of the public must take for granted Shirvell is gay, which is his greatest fear. And who’s “responsible”?
Why oh why did the good guys let him get away with this for so long? If stopped earlier, he could have slinked away instead of “having” to take a stand. Why are orders of protection not sought, bans on his entering the campus lifted? Now it’s too public. he has complete freedom of movement and he’ll feel he has no choice but to destroy the focus of his obsession, otherwise Armstrong will have won.
This “victory” is several months too late and could have been avoided altogether by stopping him immediately. It is now completely guaranteed to push Shirvell over the edge. Even if he retains his right to practice, his life will now never be the same and he will blame Chris Armstrong for that.
Young people and others who do not know better: always, always, always treat crazy people as the deadly threat they either are or could soon be and shut them down at the first sign of trouble.
We haven’t heard the last of ShirvellEven assuming he doesn’t kill Chris Armstrong, which is a very real possibility, he is sure to be ensconced in the right-wing pantheon of poor, sainted victims of the gay agenda, right alongside that poor, martyred wedding photographer in Arizona, the clods who run that church pavilion in New Jersey, and all the rest.
Then on the other hand, maybe hell meet Clint McCance, they’ll fall in love and get married. It would do both of them a world of good. And fairy tales do come true.
“Why oh why did the good guys let him get away with this for so long?”Because the good guys weren’t in the right positions of power to do anything about it. AG Cox, Shirvell’s boss, isn’t exactly a friend of the LGBT, especially when he’s got a career going that depends on the ongoing support of the anti-LGBT GOP.
Armstrong needs body armorAnd I am deadly serious about that. Clearly Shirvell is unhinged, and as the life he’s attempted to construct for himself (the one that protects him from his own deepest and darkest secrets) begins to crumble around him, he will most certainly become even more unstable.
He has already shown a penchant for displacing responsibility and blame saying it was caused by the liberal media. As this goes further, he’ll start sitting around his house with no job or career, and limited prospects, and he’ll displace the blame onto Armstrong.
He is clearly a threat, and Armstong’s attorney is doing him an dissservice if they don’t re-file their motion for a restraining order. Not that it will stop an unhinged person, but it might help.
If I were ArmstrongI would just move to DC and forget about MI.
Shirvell’s issuesWhile I question Cox’s judgment in keeping Shirvell on the payroll after his little TV meltdown on AC 360, Shirvell did have civil service protection, and his case could still go to the state board handling appeals of civil service cases. Cox appears not to have known about Shirvell’s extracurricular stalking activities and that some of them, like the calls to Nancy Pelosi’s office and some of the blog postings, were carried out when Shirvell was at his job using state computers and phone systems. In addition, as I anticipated, Armstrong’s attorney has filed a request for investigation with the Michigan Attorney Grievance commission, which Mr. Shirvell will be obligated to answer. If I recall, Matt “Bam Bam” Barber was fired from Allstate after posting antigay comments on blogs using his employee email address.
It occurs to be that Shirvell would be right at home getting on the wingnut welfare gravy train, although he has a certain notoriety that employers might want to avoid. He does indeed have a potential toward violence.