Conor Friedersdorf reports: "'After warning protesters that camping at the university is illegal, officers moved in and shoved demonstrators out of the way as they pushed toward the camp,' the Contra Costa Times reported. 'Six UC Berkeley students and an associate professor were arrested; charges included resisting officers and failing to disperse.' The police succeeded in clearing away tents, but protesters refused to leave the plaza, insisting that they'd camp there with or without equipment. Protesters with smartphones took turns webcasting video from the scene, and ultimately voted around 1 am to approve a University of California-wide general strike to be held Tuesday of next week."
UC Berkeley Police Beat Students in Sproul Plaza
10 November 11
he unarmed 'Occupy Cal' protesters were ousted from their encampment late Wednesday, but regrouped for a mass rally and sit-in.
In iconic Sproul Plaza, many hundreds or perhaps thousands of UC Berkeley students and Occupy Oakland activists clashed with university police late into the night Wednesday, after officers carried out instructions from administrators to clear Occupy Cal protesters from their makeshift encampment. "We formed a human barricade around our tents, and they just beat their way through it with batons," said one student. "It really, really hurt - I got the wind knocked out of me," another protester, doctoral student Shane Boyle, told the San Francisco Chronicle, showing the reporter a red welt on his chest. "I was lucky I only got hit twice," he added.
"After warning protesters that camping at the university is illegal, officers moved in and shoved demonstrators out of the way as they pushed toward the camp," the Contra Costa Times reported. "Six UC Berkeley students and an associate professor were arrested; charges included resisting officers and failing to disperse." The police succeeded in clearing away tents, but protesters refused to leave the plaza, insisting that they'd camp there with or without equipment. Protesters with smartphones took turns webcasting video from the scene, and ultimately voted around 1 am to approve a University of California-wide general strike to be held Tuesday of next week.
It took a couple hours to settle on that plan. Around 11:30 pm, students were massed in the plaza shouting at perhaps a couple hundred officers.
Quoth one chant, "Your families will see this."
Only afterward did they begin deliberating en masse.
The scene played out in a space most famous as ground zero during the 1964 Free Speech Movement. Sproul Plaza has since seen anti-Vietnam War sit-ins, anti-apartheid rallies, anti-Iraq War protests, and any number of smaller activist gatherings. A stroll through the plaza on an average day when school is in session is as colorful a scene as there is on campus, as student groups advertise, activists hand out leaflets, and nearby drum circles beat away.
The Daily Cal explains what precipitated the day's events:
The campuswide day of action in support of affordable higher education and the Occupy movement has grown throughout the day to over a thousand students at its peak in the early afternoon, from teach-outs in the morning to a noontime rally that was attended by about 1,000 people.
The protest activities thus far have mirrored past protests with teach-outs and a rally on Sproul Plaza, but in addition to a focus on state budget cuts and the affordability of higher education, the protest has strongly identified with the national Occupy movement and included a march to Bank of America on Telegraph Avenue.
The video at the top of this post captures a violent clash that occurred earlier in the day, when police aggressively pummeled student protesters with their batons. Said Matt Welch, editor of Reason magazine, "Watch cops at Occupy Berkeley launch coordinated baton attack against unarmed students."
As midnight approached, police were summoning reinforcements as protesters chanted, "The chancellor took our tents, but look, we took the plaza." Said another speaker: "Police are not our enemy in this fight. We must above all remain peaceful." The "human microphone" was later seized by an OWS ally from across the bay. "Occupy SF has brought some wifi," he said. "If you want the password come up here - I can't give it to everyone including the police." Activists live-streaming from the scene at midnight claimed around 10,000 viewers as one protester after another began calling for a University of California-wide all student strike. The proposal was debated via the human microphone, and ultimately passed with 569 in favor and 31 against.
One observer estimated that about half the people present participated in the vote.
In related news, The Oakland Tribune reported the following just before Wednesday's events:
Citing excessive force and free speech violations by police during protests in Oakland and at UC Berkeley, the Berkeley City Council this week refused a mutual aid agreement with university police and nixed agreements with other police agencies on regional domestic surveillance. Council members used news reports of police using excessive force at the Occupy Oakland protests and at previous protests at UC Berkeley as reason for not renewing the agreements that usually are approved each year without fanfare.
In addition, the council did not renew an agreement with the federal government on detaining illegal immigrants at the city jail. The 8-0 vote, with Mayor Tom Bates abstaining, means the council will revisit those agreements at a later date after scrutinizing them more thoroughly.
University of California campuses are patrolled by state police officers.
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Comments
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You make their day, "John". They have successfully "changed the subject". You are now focused on a useless blanket-statement speculation of the relative intelligence of policemen rather than upon the corporate depredations against this country and it's constitution which *are* the "real problem".
Don't kid yourself. Policemen are not "all stupid". You wish it were all that simple. It is not. They are not. Nor are they by any stretch of the imagination the "real problem". They are simply a symptom. They are a tactic. They are sent in for one reason. To steal the focus. To change the dialogue. A quick glance at this comment board attests to their success with this strategy.
To rob a house, a burglar may throw raw meat over the fence to distract the guard dogs. While the dogs gorge themselves, the burglar sneaks by and robs the house unnoticed. This is known as a "red-meat" strategy, or, in politics, a "red-meat" issue.
Take a quick gander at this posting page to see how many guards fell for the "red-meat" ploy. Cops are the distraction.
"The price of peace is eternal vigilance."
Totally agree. Police violence in this context is the System's own Achille's Heel. Kudos to the the truly courageous people who met this violence only with peaceful protest. This response, as "John Locke" observes, is the public's strongest weapon. Look how literally it placed Oakland on the OWS "map" overnight !
We were sleeping in our comfortable ignorance...
The strategies have been obvious: in the colder climates, the OWS prtesters are being tolerated with the idea that they'll be frozen out over the winter months and then lose interest. In the warmer climates where OWS protesters will not face a winter freeze out, violent suppression of rights is the order of the day. Again, for the power brokers of this country, smashing skulls is far preferable to listening to the people.
To the students ,you are the victors,for you expose the darkness for what it is.
It is past time for us to "alter or abolish" our corrupt system.
Land of the free? Only if you believe in and focus on money and $ profits at the expense of nature, life, and the future.
sadly yes!!!!!
Remember: A 'Banana Republic' is one that was owned and controlled by the United Fruit Company - later Chiquita.
They were all as American as ... Chiquita Bananas, to say nothing of the Frito Bandito. (Yes, thats right: just as Coca-Cola was instrumental on overthrowing the democratically elected Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954, so also Pepsico colluded in the coup against the democratically elected Allende government in Chile in 1973.
Of course, under Bush and Obama, when the democratically elected Aristide government was thrown out of Haiti in 2004 and when the Zelaya government in Honduras was ousted by a military coup in 2009, fewer people were actually tortured and killed.
Oops!
I am proud of this group of fearless youths, who took the beatings, stood tall, and by their actions -- non-violent resistance -- drove the police away. To see the armed police, at first beating, and then, realizing they were not going anywhere with that tactic, scurrying behind bushes to GET AWAY from the chanting group of students...well...that showed the world who they really are: Cowards with armor and weapons, brutally fighting the people whose right it is to peacefully dissent, speak out against injustices.
Stand tall, Occupiers!
THE WORLD IS WATCHING AMERICA.
Nan
The entire state of CA should get behind these men and women at UC Berkeley and correct the suppression of free speech from the Gov reagan years that got us where we are today.
This is the ultimate opportunity to correct course for the nation. To get us back to a Democracy that has been stolen from us.
It behooves all of us to look back as we move forward, for therein lies the greatest lessons.
Nan
that they take too many orders.
COME ON !
WAKE UP !
start thinking yourselves.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Dear Police (at least, those w/ a conscience),
Saying it's your 'job' doesn't make it right. "Just doing my job" doesn't cut it, anymore than "Just following orders."
PEACE,
JH
People want peace not violence and those officers who are violent probably need a pay check.
Time to change your criminal ways and lies.
Police arrive only to make a menacing presence and are mostly the ones who start violence, not the protesters.
Who is handling these issues? or who is NOT handling these issues? It's all so caveman on the part of our institutions.
It may take awhile but reform can only come from these "demonstrations" (occupys) -- There is absolutely no reason why these big Universities cannot use the endowments they are given and "KEEP TO MAKE $ on by ...."
Be sure to vote 2012 - the most important election to date. Vote Democrat. Vote Obama. NEVER vote for a GOP/TP who will (and have proven) they will take away more. Register early (& help the minorities, old, young, etc register) and everyone GET MAIL-IN Ballots because we've been told by the GOP/TP that voter suppression will spring up and be used in Dem districts.
Write your congressman - to be sure that if the TAX code is not modified - they will lose your vote. Enough of the 1% getting away with "Murder of Democracy" (etc)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
...as if the Dems or Obama is going to help! Dream on, sheeple, the Dems and Obama ARE a part of the Establishment. Both major parties feed at the same corporate trough. A plague on BOTH these parties!
They will honor a womans right to her own body,
They will allow unions.
They will help the middle class and poor.
The Repugs have show who they will help the rich and the corporations.
We have to get rid of all those repugs and those blue dogs who never really gave the Dems a majority.
Vote Democrat they have always listened to the people. The repugs have always listened to the wealthy.
Vote Democrat vote Obama, maybe if he gets a strong Demcratic Congress he will show you where he stands.
Wishing you well from the UK.
The "whole world" would be happier if you'd all just shut up about America for a while. Being that "beacon on the hill" is all very well, but it seems mainly to inflame Americans and motivate your people (and your soldiers) to run around the world spreading freedom and democracy and market economics. You'll forgive me if I ask you that all that has turned out.
Instead, I urge you to attend to one of your better detective novelists, Kinky Friedman (also lead singer of the country & western band, "The Texas Jewboys"). In his book, "The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover," he let it be known that the quest for the shining city was finally achieved and, when the people got there, all they found was Joan of Arc with her hair on fire.
A little less messianism and a little more modesty would help us all.
But you sound complacent and fed well. You can sit back and just take it easy, but, there are too many americans with empty stomach's and no homes, we cannot "take it easy"
The myth of America as the embodiment of the hope of humanity is a cruel joke. Don't take it easy. Expose the corporrate kleptocracy for what it is. Take care of the inequities of class, race and gender, but please forego the rhetoric of American exceptionalism.
As a non-American living outside your republic, I worry whenever I hear voices overbrimming with "change you can believe in." Too often it's just a cover for the same old exploitation.
NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN !!
"Citing excessive force and free speech violations by police during protests in Oakland and at UC Berkeley, the Berkeley City Council this week refused a mutual aid agreement with university police and nixed agreements with other police agencies on regional domestic surveillance. Council members used news reports of police using excessive force at the Occupy Oakland protests and at previous protests at UC Berkeley as reason for not renewing the agreements that usually are approved each year without fanfare.
In addition, the council did not renew an agreement with the federal government on detaining illegal immigrants at the city jail. The 8-0 vote, with Mayor Tom Bates abstaining, means the council will revisit those agreements at a later date after scrutinizing them more thoroughly."
The barbarians are not going to win.
NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN
Evey good law that has been put in was started by and passed by the Democrats.
The Republicans have given us zilch.
We did not have a majority last time with too many blue dogs but if we really have one next time you will see the difference.
You're right, it isn't the American Way - in theory! In reality, it has always been so, and right now it's happening with the blessing of your sainted pseudo-Democrat O'Bama. I don't see Dick Cheney's cousin going on TV to denounce these violent violations of the First Amendment?
Quoting from the article .... last sentence ... "University of California campuses are patrolled by state police officers."
These are not campus rent-a-cops. Helps to read the article before issuing comment on the article.
So, the fact that these *are* professionally trained and taxpayer funded police forces makes their actions all the more outrageous. They are *not* untrained "police wannabes", even tho I must agree that they certainly seem to be acting as such.
kids should not be starting out with huge college debt, not should people become bankrupt because of illnesses. anyone who supports this form of capitalism and taxation is evil.
Homeland Security"...(doesn't that just sound facist?)...military trqaining and they will kill those of us that stand up peacefully to thier authority.
I'm a Cal Berkeley alumnus from back in the days when Reagan was governor and am a veteran of many end-the-Vietnam-war demonstrations. I'm glad to see the current generation of Bears standing up for their constitutional, civil, and human rights.
Sincerely,
Joseph C. Carbone III [2 of 2]
I was encouraged when Jerry Brown took governorship of our state, California.
No encouragement anymore, with the likes of Gov. Brown and Atty. Gen. Harris, we suffer even more injustice.
When police officers brutally attacked citizens, and the brutalization is public knowledge, and Gov. Brown as well as Atty. Gen. Harris brazenly both do nothing, they are criminals; this is identical to Gov. of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, blatantly breaking the law, and instead of demanding custody of the man, the community of Wisconsin suffers him until a recall is permitted; really!
These political criminals would have us believe, because they are connected, they can do anything. This problem is the same when we, the United States people, except that Pres. Obama's authority grants him an arbitrary ability to ignore Bush's criminality. Who promises to go to work, does not work, and is paid?
These criminal elements in our police force, from their chief's, to our representatives that do nothing about them, to legislature and governors who pass anti-constitutional measures, which are actually illegal, must not be tolerated. [1 of 2]
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