The cease-fire against California students appears to be over.
Students from UC Riverside, protesting today's Board of Regents meeting, were confronted by riot police, with multiple reports indicating they were fired upon with paint-filled bullets and other projectiles that injured several at the scene.
The students, many of whom are associated with Occupy UC Riverside, today protested and (ultimately) shut down a Board of Regents meeting where tuition hikes were planned to be discussed.
The meeting was adjourned when students who managed to get inside refused to be silent in the face of skyrocketing tuition costs. After the meeting was closed, the board members were escorted off of campus amidst what were, for most of the day, incredibly peaceful and nonviolent protests.
Here is a report from ABC's local affiliate on what transpired before police began attacking protesters:
While things remained peaceful in the early afternoon, after the board members were escorted from campus, students amassed to continue their protest and were confronted by riot police – reportedly a mix of campus police and officers from the municipality – who forced them to disperse using fired projectiles that injured several protesters.
This screenshot, just one of many taken from live streams that covered incidents today, shows abrasion wounds from paint bullets fired at students by police. Photo via @marymad.
Riot police confront and use extreme force to disperse student protesters. Photo by @OccupyUMD.
This incident – another show of disproportionate force by police in the University of California system – adds to a growing list of shameful moments, most notably the indiscriminate use of pepper spray at UC Davis.
Why were these students today at UC Riverside protesting?
Tuition for students in the University of California system has nearly quadrupled in the last ten years, with plans for tuition – approximately $14,000 at most campuses – to double within the next four years.
Such increases, both past and future, make pursuing a degree at a UC campus a liability for many, and prohibitive for more still.
And one wonders why college students, leaving school with record amounts of debt, are giving up on the American dream, are raising their voices in anger, are refusing to remain silent.
Things cannot continue this way for a creative society to thrive. And students at UC Riverside understand this with a painful immediacy that drove them today to confront those who command the University of California system's purse strings.
May their voices, in numbers, continue to grow.
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Author's Note:
Video has been posted from the scene at UC Riverside which shows much of the confrontation:
