News

Protesters vote to set up Occupy Cal camp at UC Berkeley

November 9, 2011 2:44 pm by Tracey Taylor

Protestors met for a general assembly at around 1:45 pm today at Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus. Photos: Tracey Taylor

Update, 7:52pm: Video footage of police beating protesters at today’s Occupy Cal demonstrations has emerged. The following video was uploaded to YouTube by Miles Mathews [Hat-tip: Bruce Love]:

Update, 4:36 pm: Protesters have been attempting to set up tents and clashing with police at the Cal Occupy demonstrations on campus, according to various media reports. UC Berkeley spokesperson Janet Gilmore confirmed to the Daily Californian that there have been six arrests over the course of the day. UCPD have issued dispersal notices and have been taking down tents erected by protesters. Shortly after 4:00 pm, protesters were attempting to convene another general assembly.

This afternoon, Berkeley councilmember Kriss Worthington sent a letter to the UC Chancellor and the UCPD Chief complaining of what he says appears to be the suppression of free speech by the UCPD.

Here is the text of the letter:

Dear Chancellor Birgeneau and Chief Celaya,

I wanted to bring to your attention that banners with Free Speech content appear to have been seized by UCPD in front of Sproul Plaza. The banner was not attached to any tent so should not be in any questionable legal territory as validly permitted. It is hard to imagine that such an act could occur at the exact location of Berkeley where the Free Speech Movement began.

I respectfully request that you promptly inform your officers to STOP seizing banners that are legitimately in the hands of students and protesters. I also request that you return the banners that were inappropriately seized. You can imagine that the sense of irony will not be lost on the public, that the UCPD violated the Free Speech rights of protesters at this particular location.

I understand that there are lot of people at the Occupy Cal event and that such an event can cause a lot of stress on you and officers. Nonetheless, in the United States and in Berkeley, we have clearly established parameters that allow posters and Free Speech banners. We request your prompt attention to this negative blotch on the UCPD on the very first day of Occupy Cal.

These students have made a firm commitment to no violence and no vandalism . The University should be commending the thousands of students that are participating. For many, this could be their very first political protest of their life. They are protesting specifically for additional financing for the University of California. The University should support this enthusiasm and help encourage this to be an effective protest that helps the University and our country.

It is unfortunate and unacceptable that the UCPD are vandalizing and removing free speech banners from the event. Please stop this behavior now.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this important issue.

Sincerely Kriss W.

…………………………….

At a general assembly held this afternoon at Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus, several hundred protesters voted to establish an “Occupy Cal” encampment, starting today, both to show allegiance to the Occupy Wall Street movement and to demonstrate against public education budget cuts and tuition hikes.

The Occupy Cal day of action began with teach-outs beginning at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, and was followed by a rally at noon on Sproul Plaza, then the general assembly.

At around 1:20 pm a group of protesters marched off campus and down Telegraph Avenue and attempted to put caution tape around the Bank of America building at 2347 Telegraph, according to the Daily Californian, which has been live-blogging and tweeting the events throughout the day. Crowds were heard chanting, “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out.”

UC Berkeley administrators have said they will not tolerate an Occupy Cal encampment in the style of Occupy Oakland

Protesters will discuss plans for what they said would be a peaceful encampment — including potential locations and prevention of fire hazards — later today.

Campus administration has made it clear it will not tolerate an encampment in the style of Occupy Oakland, and the UCPD has said that it will take “appropriate actions” to enforce campus policy, according to the Daily Cal. Follow the Daily Californian on Twitter and through its live blog for developing news.

Related:
A mom goes to Occupy Oakland with her 7-year-old twins [11.08.11]
Occupy Berkeley consolidates camp, supports Oakland [11.02.11]
BPD lent support to OPD at Occupy Oakland demonstration [10.26.11]
All quiet at Occupy Berkeley camp at MLK Park [10.26.11]
Berkeley joins 900 cities to condemn corporate greed [10.16.11]

72 Comments

Print Friendly
Tagged , , , , , ,
Newer Comments →
  • Guest

    Is there any cause that the Students for Justice in Palestine won’t try to co-opt?

  • John Holland
  • GPO

    Yes, possibly Occupy Palestine?

  • Bruce Love

    Here is raw footage of the police playing “punch a hippy” today:

    http://www.youtube.com/user/thedailycal#p/u/0/NSat-nRefXY

  • GPO

    Thanks for the link.  Disturbing representation of the police state in action.  Near the end of this clip, is the crowd actually chanting at the sheriffs, “Stop being Judas” or is that my imagination?  Was that the Students for Justice in Palestine leading that chant perhaps?

  • 12345678

    looks like raw footage of the campus cops doing their job and shutting down an unlawful assembly and encampment

     

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_V6KQTJGAQAZXMNEIKG5LM2IHZU Tizzielish

    I think the students are chanting ‘stop beating students’. But I could be wrong, of course.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_V6KQTJGAQAZXMNEIKG5LM2IHZU Tizzielish

    12345678 .  .what unlawful behavior did you see?  freedom of assembly is their right.  I saw no encampment so your mentioning of it is manipulative.

  • Bruce Love

    “Stop beating students”

    Goes with a chant from earlier:  “UCPD what do you say?  /  How many students did ya’ beat today?”

  • Bruce Love
  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_V6KQTJGAQAZXMNEIKG5LM2IHZU Tizzielish

    There are so few humans in this world worried about justice in Palestine, I understand why students for Justice in Palestine would try to get what little attention they can, under any circumstance, for the Jewish State’s persistent, violent oppression of Palestine.

  • Guest

    The students were warned in the Chancellor’s e-mail that erecting tents on university property is unlawful and would not be permitted.

    The police told them to get rid of the tents for the same reason. The students in the video erected tents, and are standing in front of the last one of them. It can be seen being moved in the video.

    Ifthey  whine about the police taking action to get rid of the encampment
    after that, they’re not intelligent enough to be in college. Being
    peaceful and non-violent does not make it OK for them to do something
    that is expressly forbidden. It’s not a free pass to do what you want. The
    world doesn’t work like that. 

  • Guest

    They’re Alameda County Sheriff Police, not “campus cops”. 

  • Kooo1988

    Berkeley police beating Cal students before retreating.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buovLQ9qyWQ

  • Anon

    glad you posted this
    you can clearly see the tent that the students are surrounding in this video

  • Bruce Love

    Yup.  You can see all kinds of what’s going down.

  • guest

    berkeley students and various troublemakers refusing to allow police to remove an unlawful encampment
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buovLQ9qyWQ

     

  • Berkeleystud

    +1

  • libraterian

    This style of enforcement puts police at too much risk. Water cannons seem a better solution. Plus the twin unintended benefits: Telegraph’s sidewalks get a much needed hosing down and on campus, the lawns get watered. 

  • joshua a

    This video seems outrageous. There was no reason for the cops to start beating on people and cop number 14 in particular seems happy to whack away at a protester who is on the ground. 

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    *sigh*

  • Lhasa7

    The only thing I am enraged about here are the “news copters,” which are making Berkeley completely uninhabitable by sentient life.

  • lefthegelian

    It seems important that the occupy movements not forget the predominant meaning of occupation during our time. Otherwise it seems that we regard occupations as good. So their banner is an important reminder to us all to remember the unjust occupation of palestinian lands.

  • Gawkers_go_home

    Okay, it’s 10pm .. time for the goddamn news helicopters to stop harassing us.  

  • http://twitter.com/Mtl4u2 Les Zouazo

    Invoking the law can be very, very useful to those in position to suppress free speech. Please, let’s not equate what is legal to what is moral, shall we?

  • Anonymous

    If, that small two letter word with the big meaning, there are indeed Alameda Co. Sheriffs Department employees, then it might explain — partially — why they are so sadistic, bull headed, simple minded and violent.  They are the most militarized, poorly trailed and dim witted of the local agencies involved and most if not all are what are called ‘lifers’. 

  • Lhasa7
  • Anonymous

    The cost for these news choppers is about $600. to $1200. per hour as the fuel costs alone.  They are still at it — in the air and circling – at 10:20 pm. and have been all day. The good news is that most have the ability to zoom in with video and catch all sorts of malfeasance even in hidden places, so they have the potential to at least attempt to keep people and police especially, accountable in such situations.  So none of these police agencies posses, own or have been trained to use tear gas?  The lawyers are going to use this footage well in court later.   

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    The helicopters probably won’t stop until the end of the nightly news (11pm) or until the protesters go home.

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    I can’t hear them at all where I am. You must live really close to campus.

  • Lhasa7

    At least we can rest assured they will be back on the job by 6:00 a.m. or so.

  • Lhasa7

    Not at all; I am west of MLK by several blocks. Central Berkeley has sounded like a war zone for hours now.

  • Gawkers_go_home

    okay, I’m such a hypocrite.  I was watching the CBS feed until they went home at 11, now it’s just ABC that’s in the air .. http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/livenow?id=8425222 

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_V6KQTJGAQAZXMNEIKG5LM2IHZU Tizzielish

    One copter was poised directly above my building most of the day and only stopped near midnight. It sounded like a war zone. I live on Oxford, directly across from Campus. About a block south of my building was another copter, also hovering all day and late into the night.  What is the need for this? What the frak can’t they hover over the campus, or over Tilden?  Why downtown? where people, lots of them, live.

  • the pony

    It think it’s higly problematic. Israel/Palestine is NOT comparable with what is going in CAL or in the U.S. –just the term “occupy” bring them in relation and that only in so far you would agree that Israel is occupying Palastine. But this theme is much more than the image of the “god suppressed” and the “evil occupants”. It is complex, contraoversely discussed and will be reduced in this context. That won’t help neither Palestine or Israel nor the student here and their protest and demands!! If I could be there I would ask them not to use those simplified phrases

  • Anonymous

    99% of Cal students are products of the 1%. Just sayin’.

  • the pony

    99% and 1% are products of the one system. that makes a difference!

  • Anonymous

    I doubt it.

  • Anonymous

    What I see are a bunch of police gleefully brutalizing college students who are lawfully assembled.  The punishment for peacefully assembling and erecting symbolic tents justifies police brutality?  Has the Berkeleyside hoi-polloi lost their minds?

  • Guest

    the students are blocking the police from removing an unlawful encampment
    they set up tents even though they were told that doing so would be unlawful you can see it in some of the videos

  • Sarah

    Fact check! 25% of Cal students are first generation college students. I doubt that many of those students identify with the 1%. Just sayin’

  • Anonymous

    No matter how many times you repeat “unlawful encampment”, you really have to look at how much harm its causing and therefore how much force is called for to deal with the problem.

    Just like every other occupy situation with the police, its about a social fear of the long-hair hippies, not trying to keep order or deal with a substantial problem.

    Lets hear the specious sanitation argument again, eh?

  • Anonymous

    Riding your bike on the sidewalk is illegal.  Peeing on the street is unlawful.  Drinking a beer while going for a walk in the city is illegal.  You get a citation for each of those.  If you erect a tent on school property you get beat?  Is that your argument?  That by breaking a rule – they deserved a violent response?  I strongly believe that the repercussions in this situation are disproportionate to the ‘lawbreaking’.  Why defend that?  You notice that none of those kids had weapons or armor?  They built a tent and then stood around it.    

  • Anonymous

    Guest, for a reality check on unlawful acts that need police response, take a look at what Penn State students did last night because their football coach was fired (who conspired to hide information about allegations of sexual abuse by his assistant coach):  http://gothamist.com/2011/11/10/penn_state_students_riot_after_trus.php.  I’d hang out with the Occupy Berkeley students any day and stay as far as I could from those testosterone fueled idiots at Penn State.

  • Bruce Love

    Apparently you believe that the rule against tents is reasonable and is justly applied in this situation, and that the violence initiated and administered by the police is fair and represents the kind of society in which you wish to live.

  • No

    they are saying “stop beating students”

  • resident

    In Southwest Berkeley (San Pablo Park) at 11 pm, they were loud enough to sound as though they were directly overhead. I assume they wanted some meaningless live footage for the 11 pm broadcast. What a waste.

  • Guest

    you get a citation unless you refuse to stop, are combative, or resist the police
    then you get a beat down until you comply
    how else should it have been handled?
    just let them break the rules because they feel like it?
    what kind of society is that?

  • Guest

    “Apparently you believe that the rule against tents is reasonable”
    yes. no camping in public is reasonable

    “and is justly applied in this situation,”
    yes. it is applied to every one so it is fair

    “and that the violence initiated and administered by the police is fair
    and represents the kind of society in which you wish to live.”
    yes. breaking rules must be punished or rules are meaningless

  • guest

    breaking the law is ok if it does not cause much harm according to you?
    who decides how much is enough harm

Newer Comments →