WTF?????
Twenty minutes ago, I was sitting on the steps of Sproul, listening to a teach-0in on the UC’s relationship with the Los Alamos nuclear facility. About a hundred people were scattered across the steps, in different groups, and maybe 15 police on the edges of things. It is the single most normal thing that ever happens on Sproul Plaza, or it would be if there wasn’t one tent – for a single person, unoccupied– at the very center of the steps.I was sitting right next to it.
Without warning, a UCPD police lieutenant ran across the steps, grabbed the tent and tried to run away with it. Someone else grabbed the tent, two more cops moved in, the tent is breaking into many pieces, and other cops (and many, many cameras converge). We’re shouting; I was shouting “ARE YOU CHILDREN?!! IS THIS RECESS IN KINDERGARTEN?!!” The cops arrest the person who was trying to prevent them from taking the tent, and take him away around the side of Sproul Plaza. A crowd of fifty or so follow behind them, shouting, and three of them create a barricade (batons out) around the entrance where they’ve taken the person they arrested. My friend Richard shouts, “Now the UC is in the business of disappearing people?” My heart is beating very fast.
http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/...
Did the police think they were playing Capture the Flag?
For how Sproul Plaza looked early this morning after last night's discombobulations here's my earlier diary.
11:01 AM PT: Heh. Great minds.
zunguzungu Aaron Bady
That was capture the flag.
11:04 AM PT: The SF Chronicle reports:
Occupy Cal protesters were rousted this morning by a single campus police officer who asked them to leave Sproul Plaza, site of a confrontation Wednesday evening in which police shoved clubs into protesters' abdomens to try to get them to move and 32 people were arrested.
The group of a dozen students and activists did as they were told, taking down their tents and rolling up their sleeping bags. They said they would return in greater numbers at 6 p.m. for a general assembly to discuss the protest and Wednesday's police response.
One tent remained on the steps of Sproul Hall until 10:30 a.m., when police moved in and took it down. By then, the roughly 60 demonstrators who had arrived were chanting "shame on you" as police dragged away the tent.
http://www.sfgate.com/...
As I reported in the other diary, there were plently of police there from 8:15 AM until I left around 9:00 AM and none of them seemed at all concerned about the single tent that remained.
11:08 AM PT: Report on last night's arrests:
Thirty-two people were arrested on suspicion of resisting and delaying police officers and failing to disperse, UC Berkeley police Lt. Alex Yao told the Daily Californian (http://bit.ly/... ). They were sent to Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County for processing.
http://www.pantagraph.com/...
Santa Rita jail is some 20+ miles away southeast of Berkeley off a I580 in Dublin, CA. Ridiculous.
11:11 AM PT: Liveblog from the Oakland Tribune:
After a night clashing with police, two tents and a few dozen protesters remained early Thursday at UC Berkeley in front of Sproul Hall. The protest has grown smaller over the course of the morning and plans are being set for a possible rally this evening.
10:40 p.m. Officer sprints in, grabs tent
The calm of the teach-in was shattered briefly when a police officer suddenly sprinted in and grabbed the tent in an attempt to rip it away, starting a tug of war with a protester. Several other officers rushed in to help, and the tent was ripped apart. The protester trying to protect the tent was arrested as the crowd shouted, "Shame on you, shame on you."
http://www.mercurynews.com/...
11:31 AM PT: You can't make this stuff up.
zunguzungu Aaron Bady
The ucpd just told us that the grass is closed.
2 minutes ago
12:21 PM PT: More hilarity.
zunguzungu Aaron Bady
One cop thinks the grass is closed. one says it is not. the only thing thats clear is the arbitrariness of this rule.
42 minutes ago