A 20-year-old man has been charged with disturbing the peace after a video showed him shouting antisemitic slurs and throwing coins at Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy near Mississippi State University.
The Starkville Police Department identified the suspect as Patrick McClintock, who was charged, processed, and released on Monday. Police confirmed they are also investigating a potential hate crime enhancement, which under Mississippi law can be used to increase penalties if a crime is found to be motivated by discriminatory bias. Attempts to reach McClintock for comment were unsuccessful.
The confrontation occurred Friday while Portnoy, who is Jewish, was filming a college-town pizza review in Starkville. A video he later posted to Instagram shows a man approaching him outside Boardtown Pizza & Pints, yelling, “F— the Jews. F— you, Dave Portnoy… Get out of Starkville.” The footage shows the man being blocked by another individual and shouted down by apologetic restaurant patrons.
Following the encounter, Portnoy is heard on the video saying, “There’s a–holes everywhere. What are you going to do?” In later commentary, he attributed the rise in such incidents to online rhetoric, suggesting the man “hates” his life and is looking for someone to blame.
Mississippi State University spokesperson Sid Salter said McClintock was a student but voluntarily withdrew hours after police issued an arrest warrant. Salter stated that the incident “didn’t reflect the culture and values of the university.”
The incident has drawn condemnation from advocacy groups. The nonprofit Endjewhatred argued McClintock should face hate crime charges, while the American Jewish Committee described the encounter as a reflection of “the broader rise in antisemitism across America today.”
Portnoy has been an outspoken critic of campus protests against Israel following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. He has also been connected to past controversies involving antisemitism, including an incident in May where two servers at a Barstool-branded Philadelphia bar were fired after delivering a sign with antisemitic language to a table. Portnoy stated at the time that he believed it was a misguided joke rather than a hate-motivated act.
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