Though Camp Coyote no longer exists at Yale Park due to the denial of their request for an extension of the required permit for peaceful assembly, (Un)Occupy/Occupy Albuquerque continues to move forward with events and General Assembly meetings.
In fact, the denial of the permit extension, especially the reasons provided for that denial, has only created a more unified group and drawn more interest to the local Occupy Movement.
It has also created a reason for an Injunction against the University which is being handled by the ACLU.
At 5pm this evening, a demonstration focusing on the violation of First Amendment Rights by UNM will be held on the sidewalk in front of Yale Park where Camp Coyote used to reside.
Following the demonstration, a General Assembly meeting will begin at 6pm as usual. The location of the GA meeting is still to be determined. However, some are suggesting it be held on the sidewalk in front of Yale Park, while others are suggesting it be held at the Schlotzky's which was so welcoming last night.
Meanwhile, several other events are occurring in tandem.
Mayor Berry was having one on one meetings with citizens at Cesar Chavez Community Center on Louisiana and Kathryn. A valid ID was required, as well as registration, to speak with him. That began at 1pm today. A few active protesters went down to meet with the Mayor, but I've no information as to the outcome as this goes to press.
There will also be a "Teach-In" held in Yale Park by several UNM Professors, Staff, and Students from the Peace Studies program during the same time the General Assembly is scheduled, and though this looks as if the two events may clash, when viewed in context with UNM's stated position regarding the current policy of not allowing anyone associated with the protest into Yale Park at any time, this sets up a situation which provides fuel for the Injunction voted upon by the GA last night.
As is being done around the country, after the GA meeting here, a Candlelight Vigil will be held in honor of Scott Olson, the Marine Veteran whose skull was fractured during the raid on Occupy Oakland. A tear gas canister was shot at his head during police actions there. He is in critical, but stable condition. Currently he is in a medically induced coma and he needs our thoughts and prayers!
The following is the Press Release for the Teach-In:
Tonight - 6:05 PM in Yale Park on the UNM Campus
On October 6th, 2011 the UNM Administration suggested that the Peace Studies Program take advantage of the ‘teachable moment’ presented to the University by the presence on campus of the (un)Occupy Albuquerque movement that was claiming public space in support of the now global ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement. In welcoming the opportunity to take on that role, dozens of faculty members, students and community members have shared their expertise on a wide variety of issues surrounding both the local and larger movements which loosely revolve around basic issues of class warfare and the far reaching consequences of it. These early ‘teachable moments’ were held over the course of 6 days and were extremely well attended events.
As the Administration has chosen to not renew the permit for the (un)Occupy Albuquerque Movement on campus as of 10 PM on Oct. 25, we felt as a program that it would be worthwhile to fill the void left by the absence of the regularly scheduled ‘General Assemblies’ that the (Un)Occupy Albuquerque movement used to conduct with an impromptu ‘Teachable Moment by President Schmidly’. Please join representatives and supporters of the UNM Peace Studies Program at 6:05 PM in Yale Park at the former site of ‘Camp Coyote’ to take advantage of the wisdom that a tight knit community of faculty members, students and the surrounding community can share with each other.
The goal (or theme) for the evening is to talk about the ‘teachable moments’ that the University has cultivated (and occupied) within our community in terms of its relationship to the (un)Occupy Albuquerque movement and its supporters. We do not know the length of this gathering as it is spontaneous in nature. It is open to all students, faculty and community members who would like to attend.
As of this time, there is not another event planned by this program...
We hope to see many of you there tonight!
(we recognize that this may interfere with the General Assembly that is being organized by the (Un)Occupy Albuquerque Movement and hope that it doesn't conflict with it in any way.)
Thank You, Desi Brown - UNM Peace Studies Program.
Reports are already beginning to trickle in regarding a police presence in Yale Park.
Barbara: Campus Police parking IN the park, not on street west side of Library right now!!!
However, with a sanctioned "Teach-In", one wonders exactly how UNM Campus police will respond.
(Un)Occupy/Occupy Albuquerque protesters are cautious, but not deterred and will continue with their efforts to ensure their voices are heard.
As with last night's entry, there will be continued reporting of events throughout the evening on this diary as information is received.
5:51 PM PT: What follows are twitter updates by an on site protester:
#OccupyBurque Cops and news are allowed on Yale Park but UNM students are not? Trying 2 get answers, Leiutenant in command polite, confused?
5:51 PM PT: #OccupyBurque I'm counting 15 police vehicles now around Yale Park, including state, city, & UNM, 1 big prisoner trans, ~25 cops.
5:52 PM PT: #OccupyBurque 4 Teachable Moments: 1. Eviction 19 minutes after permit 2. Admin refuses to speak 3. Tues night - refuse to renew permit 4.
5:52 PM PT: #OccupyBurque 4 Teachable Moments Meeting: 4. Restricting freedom of speech by closing Yale Park to everyone (except corporate press)
5:52 PM PT: #OcuppyBurque GA announcements: Many websites addressed. See occupyburque.org for links to all. Hunger strike in 3rd day.
5:53 PM PT: #OccupyBurque Larry the Lawyer gives update on injunction of UNM: its moving forwards. Criminal defense lawyer working pro bono on arrests.
6:07 PM PT: #OccupyBurque Working Group times, places, & contact info will be available @ http://www.occupyalbuquerque.org w/in 24hrs of now!
6:12 PM PT: #OccupyBurque For Working Group Info also contact xxxxxxx@gmail.com
6:13 PM PT: RT @db_s_turbosnail: no one can get into the park at all. we need more ppl to help support #occupyburque
6:16 PM PT: db_s_turbosnail
cops have completely surrounded the public park evicting teachers, students, & citzens alike #occupyburque
6:17 PM PT: db_s_turbosnail
@RoseWeaver12 we are on the sidewalk at Yale Park. I donlt know how long we will be FYI
6:18 PM PT: db_s_turbosnail
@RoseWeaver12 my suggestion is to join tomorrow
6:21 PM PT: db_s_turbosnail
dear #albuquerque this is a call to action to stand up for your Constitutional Rights #occupyburque
6:24 PM PT: call your friends, neighbors and family. let's triple our numbers by saturday #albuquerque #taos #santafe #occupyburque
6:30 PM PT: Update on Teach-In: Teachers, Students, and citizens were all surrounded and evicted from the park. db_s_turbosnail tweeted to me that the Teach-In was completed anyway by that time.
6:34 PM PT: Update: Enrique, who spoke at the Teach-In posted the following to the FB page:
I appreciate those who are out there on the streets! We all do what we can. Wherever we are on Sunday I would like to present what I talked about at the Teach-In. As for focus areas besides general actions I would like to focus on Foreclosures (there are those already organized for that) and local election reform work (respond to this or send me your email if you are interested).
6:35 PM PT: prosopis
#OccupyBurque Friends of Yale Park FB group -- please spread the word, esp to UNM community members! on.fb.me/v5hCtl
6:36 PM PT: Posted on the Friends of Yale Park Front Page (FB Group):
Christian
As of today at 6pm (at least), UNM in conjunction with Albuquerque Police, have closed Yale Park (across Central from Satellite) indefinitely. This includes UNM faculty, staff, and students.
It's critically important for the UNM community hear about this: the administration has unilaterally placed an important part of campus off-limits to all of us without a formal announcement or explanation.
Please share this with friends in the UNM community and let them know how the administration is using our tax and tuition money.
6:48 PM PT: From the Friends of Yale Park Group: Here's the Lobo article discussing the ACLU injuction. It mentions that "protesters" are banned. To be clear, the police were explicit: Yale Park is currently closed to everyone. I spoke with the Lieutenant there today myself. (A member of the (Un)Occupy/Occupy Albuquerque Movement)
Daily Lobo Article: (un)Occupy crosses street to hold meeting
6:55 PM PT: From Friends of Yale Park Group:
As of today at 6pm (at least) on the 27th of October, UNM has closed Yale Park indefinitely. This includes UNM faculty, staff, and students. Yale Park is a prominent and important part of campus. Just west of the bookstore, it contains numerous benches and grass, and connects campus to local businesses including coffee shops and eateries that many members of the UNM community regularly visit. In addition, many people regularly walk through Yale Park to move between residences and campus. Today Albuquerque police informed the public that Yale Park was off-limits to everyone.
It's critically important for the UNM community hear about this. The administration has unilaterally placed an important part of campus off-limits to all of us without a formal announcement or explanation.
Please share this with friends in the UNM community and let them know how the administration is using our tax and tuition money.
(Un)Occupy/Occupy Albuquerque Protests made the on line pages of Bloomberg Businessweek as well. NM: Protesters arrested at anti-Wall Street rally highlights the events of the past couple of days, including arrests following UNM's decision to deny renewal of the permit.
Schmidly said in a statement that he met with protest organizers and that he supports their rights to free expression. But he said he was standing by the university's decision against renewing the permit because of safety concerns, including an incident Friday when a man lunged with a knife at protests.
"The prolonged and unique nature of this protest and continuous encampment have evolved beyond the capacity for either the protesters or the university to ensure the safety of the participants as well as our students, employees and visitors," Schmidly said.
However, a prominent local poet and frequent protester, Hakim Bellamy pointed out what many Albuquerque residents already know, and what has already been discussed within prior Diaries here:
Hakim Bellamy, 33, said the school was using a few isolated events as an excuse to close the campsite. "These are incidents that happen at UNM all the time," said Bellamy, who has brought his 3-year-old son to protests. "Since the `Occupy' movement is there, it's easy for them to try to affiliate (those incidents) with it and make (them) seem like its cause to eject them from the campus."
The name change of our local Occupy Movement was also briefly explained:
The local version of the movement changed its name recently to "(Un)occupy Albuquerque" after concerns were raised about the negative connotations of the word "occupy" in a city with a large Native American population.
Having just posted on the Occupy Albuquerque (Official) Burque FB page, I was given permission to quote the results of one meeting with Mayor Berry:
Rhadona: It was a brief 5 minutes! ;) 4 of us were there and my topic was the police brutality, bataning people and macing people Tuesday night during the arrest of the alleged cop car kicker! He had not seen the video or been made aware that there had been such actions taken... luckily KOB was there in the room, and the man that shot the video was there and it was still on his camera! Mr. Barry said that he would discuss it with Cheif Schultz... Barbara can give you more information as she spoke to him about possibly taking up space in Robinson Park... :)
11:48 PM PT: QUICK UPDATE: GA has ended and short reports have been posted by two individuals. As follows:
Sayrah: Tonight about 65 of us stood in front of Yale Park on the sidewalk in front of 19 cops (UNM & state police) in a moment of silence--very powerful. The police actually observed it with us. Then we had our GA on the sidewalk. Pretty funny that the police stood their ground and had to listen to our "human mic" for almost 3 hrs going through the agenda. They left before we did!
Desi: There were people there until well after 8 PM... 'Battle lines' were drawn in terms of Free Speech issues - what occurred tonight will be very useful in coming days.
Information from the General Assembly meeting has finally come in. Posted within the comment below was the following which is posted here with permission from the comment author:
Tonight went extremely well!!! I'm downloading pix, some of which I'll post here. It wasn't a great photo-op, but a visual sense of things is important.
I'm writing off the top of my head. It's a challenge to photograph while also trying to follow the peoples-miked discussions. Thx for your diary, Rose!!! I'll just fill in a few things in the spaces.
Desi brilliantly exploited a loophole, or maybe a couple of them. One being that if an "event" happens with less than 24 hours of planning, it doesn't need permission. The other being the right of faculty etc to organize educational activities, as he wrote above.
One of the members of the faculty board spoke of how this is just another example of Pres. Schmidly's arrogance, already displayed when he ignored a faculty vote of no confidence earlier this year. He predicted this is the beginning of his downfall, because of his obvious ineptness/tone-deafness/disrespect in handling this.
Much discussion of other places. Quite a bit of work going on seeking out something. The Methodist Church downtown is interested, since they have been feeding people and working w/homeless for a long time. General agreement we would rather be on public land, but who knows??? Also concern that we need shelter for the winter, and also office space.
Also much conversation about the Facebook page. Who woulda thunk it? Consensused to task it to the Media Group to come up with rules for managing the site and present a proposal to tomorrow's GA. [low quiet murmuring lololol going on here]. What I really want for Halloween is a real website. There is progress in that direction. Facebook just doesn't cut it at all.
Broke for about half an hour to line out along Central in a vigil honoring Scott Olsen, also remembering the woman who was killed near Camp Coyote, and also any others who have been/might become victims of the powers-that-be's attempt to push us down.
And the highlight of the night [drumroll] was a message to us of solidarity and support from the UNM Police! They said they respected us, what we're doing, and have no idea why they are being ordered to do what they're being ordered to do.
I think the powers that be underestimate how intelligent we are. Our individual and collective creative intelligence, in service of truth, compassion, and justice, is our greatest "weapon" in this struggle. Reloveution!!!
With all our flaws, conflicts, weaknesses, blemishes, we are engaged in an amazing evolutionary process.
Namaste! ---Marti
Photos from tonight's GA meeting by Marti will be uploaded tomorrow.
Thanks so much for your assistance on this article, Marti, and everyone else who assisted with providing comments, information, tweets, permission to publish... and most of all, your presence at Yale Park for continued support of (Un)Occupy/Occupy Albuquerque!