Police brutality at University of California, Santa Cruz

2005-04-22

Richard Moore

Friends,

The report below is chilling. At the same time, it opens up
some interesting possibilities.

The scenario is reminiscent of how the Free Speech
Movement began at Berkeley in the sixties. In that case, a few
radical students had occupied the administration building,
without widespread support from the rest of the students. It
was the police brutality in removing them that caused the
majority of students to join the movement, eclipsing whatever
had been the original motivation for the occupation. The
police response to the occupation turned out to be a strategic
blunder, leading eventually to a nation-wide student movement
that was a major component of the overall sixties movements.

The tactics used by the police in this case, UC Santa Cruz,
were comparable to the tactics used at anti-globalization
demonstrations. In those demonstrations, the participants were
mostly from elsewhere, and they went home afterwards, their
solidarity and anger dispersed to the winds. At UC Santa Cruz,
however, the students were attacked in their own community, so
to speak. They will still be there tomorrow, next week, and
next month. The creates quite  a different situation in terms
of what is likely to follow.

I hope Mark Bodhi will send us further reports (to:
•••@••.•••). Also, Mark, please send a DVD of
your edited footage. I'll give you a postal address if you
respond to this. I suggest that you include some participant 
interviews in your final cut, and perhaps interviews with
other students as well.

yours,
rkm
http://cyberjournal.org

--------

The following action is planned for today, Friday 
(from http://santacruz.indymedia.org/):

            Tent University Santa Cruz 
            
            Friday, 22 April 2005 
            All day 
            
            UCSC students, faculty and staff will create an alternative
            university at the base of the UC Santa Cruz campus to form a
            giant tent city symbolizing the displacement of higher
            education in our state. The initial reason for our gathering
            is the unjust budget priorities that manifest at our campus.
            Our goal is to catalyze a grassroots cultural revolution. UCSC
            faculty will lead their classes there, rather than in their
            classrooms; representatives of various community organizations
            and movements will hold teach-ins and workshops; and students
            will teach their own classes on a wide variety of subjects.
            The ongoing workers' struggle, the anti-war movement, the
            walk-out to defend public education on April 20, and the
            racial justice movement will all be part of this historic
            convergence.
            
            Location: 
            UCSC Santa Cruz, the fields of the base of campus 
            Cost: free 
            Contact: future (at) riseup.net 
            URL: http://ucsc.tentstate.com 

--------------------------------------------------------
From: •••@••.•••
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 03:07:44 EDT
Subject: Fwd: Police brutality at University of California, Santa Cruz
To: •••@••.•••

---<fwd>---
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 12:35:34 -0700
To: Recipient List Suppressed:;
From: Tom Cahill <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Police brutality at University of California, Santa Cruz

---<fwd>---
 From: bodhi mark <•••@••.•••>
 Subject: Police brutality at University of California, Santa Cruz
 some footage of some police brutality at ucsc
   4/18/05  is at this web site

http://santacruz.indymedia.org/      [corrected from Mark's original link]

Yesterday 4/18/05 the students of University of California
Santa Cruz were peacefully gathered at the base of campus were
they had erected several tents to hold alternative lectures
in. Around 10pm about 50 university police arrived in riot
gear and immediately started to tear up tents. Some of the
tents were occupied, most notably by a young mother and her
five-year-old child. Their tent was ripped up and rolled
around with them still in it. About 68 students having
congregated in the large center tent locked arms and sat
peacefully in small circles as the police surrounded their
tent and announced that they were an illegal assembly. Several
minutes later the police began to execute choke holds on the
students to force them to let go of each other.

These choke holds are not allowed for use by city police but
the university police use them. They consist of the police
pushing their thumbs into both sides of the victim's neck at
the jugular. Riot police surrounded the students sitting in
the tent. Students and supporters surrounded the tent and
police. After about 13 arrests the students on the perimeter
locked arms and refused to allow the police to drag the
arrested students from the tent to the police detention
vehicle. The police used batons to force their way through the
students. It was after the police arrested about five more of
the students this way that they gave up.

The university negotiated with some students granting them
permission for a small number to camp there overnight, and the
university police were called off. However due to the
democratic anarchistic organization of tent state those
students who negotiated with the university had no authority
to speak for the whole group. The number of students who
stayed behind was decided at a late night meeting after the
police had left. Those at the Tent State celebrated their
victory today and held classes as planned.   I was in the main
tent filming the arrests and have many good shots of the
violence perpetrated on the students by the university police.
I have about 2 hours of footage which I can easily edit down
into about 10 minutes which you could use as you want.

 Please contact me at ANY time on my cell phone
  (831) 325-1636.
 Bodhi Mark
-- 

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Richard Moore (rkm)
Wexford, Ireland

"Escaping The Matrix - 
Global Transformation: 
WHY WE NEED IT, AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT ", old draft:
    http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/rkmGlblTrans.html
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    http://www.truthout.org
    http://www.williambowles.info/monthly_index/
    http://www.zmag.org
    http://www.co-intelligence.org
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