Tuesday, Ed wrote about professor Shellyne Rodriguez who was already in trouble with her employer, Hunter College, for harassing a group of pro-life students who were tabling at the school. But as Ed pointed out, the situation escalated to a new level when a couple of NY Post reporters showed up at Rodriguez’ apartment and knocked on her door. She came out with a machete and put it to the neck of reporter Reuven Fenton. Fenton and his cameraman left immediately but Rodriguez followed them onto the street, again holding the machete.

Not surprisingly, Rodriguez was quickly fired by Hunter College. The remaining question was whether or not the police would get involved. Today we learned the answer was yes.

The manic Manhattan arts professor who held a machete to a Post reporter’s neck and threatened to “chop” him up flashed a brazen smile Thursday after law enforcement sources say she was slapped with harassment and menacing charges.

A smirking Shellyne Rodriguez, 45, held her head high as she was escorted out of the 43rd Precinct in the Bronx in handcuffs just after 11 a.m. — several hours after turning herself in over Tuesday’s caught-on-camera ordeal.

Harassment and menacing charges sounds about right. According to Rodriguez, she had been harassed because of the release of the video showing her behavior toward the pro-life students on campus. She was afraid someone would come to her home and try to harm her.

If you’re afraid you don’t come out of your apartment, you keep the door closed and locked. You certainly don’t chase two men down the street after they’ve left the building. They weren’t threatening her, she was threatening them. Her inability to see the difference says a lot about her. She gave a statement to ArtNews about her situation:

Rodriguez’s statement did not directly address the incident with Fenton, though she did say that the entire situation had “taken a toll on my mental health, robbing me of my sense of safety, and creating reasonable fear that they would show up at my home to cause me physical harm, as has happened with so many other women who have similarly had their personal info exposed as a form of politically motivated harassment.”…

Rodriguez said in her statement that the school had “capitulated” to “racists, white nationalists, and misogynists.”…

In her statement, Rodriguez wrote, “As much as this incident has stakes for my life, it is ultimately just one part of a broader political struggle taking place across the country. Right wing media organizations are weaponizing and sensationalizing this case to further their agenda, and using me as a prism through which to project their attacks on women, trans people, black people, Latinx people, migrants, and beyond.”

In short, she sees herself as the victim here even though she’s the one chasing people with a machete. Her claim that this is all part of a “broader political struggle” is also bunk. I’m sure she’d love to be part of some grand struggle but she’s just an unhinged professor acting out toward strangers who have no power over her. The NY Post spoke to some professors and students at her former college, several of whom said they weren’t surprised by her behavior.

A Hunter professor…said he wasn’t surprised by his ex-colleague’s outbursts — only that it had taken this long for “anyone to care.”

“She’s nutty. She’s not alone. We’ve got plenty of nuts here,” the professor, who didn’t want to give his name, added.

A 19-year-old accounting major who gave his name as Feng suggested it wasn’t uncommon for “angry” teachers to have strong opinions.

“There are many angry people here who think they have the right to act any way if you don’t do what they say or think what they think. No, not students, teachers,” he said.

I’m going to assume she’ll be convicted since the whole thing is on video. I’m not sure what kind of sentence she’s ultimately facing. It probably won’t be much unless she’s got prior convictions. If nothing else, I hope it leads to her lawsuit against the NYPD being dismissed. She claims nerve damage to her wrists because her zip ties were too tight during an arrest, but she looked pretty comfortable holding that machete.