IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
University of California, Santa Cruz
15 October 2009
Students participating in an occupation of one of the campus buildings at UC Santa Cruz were maced and arrested by police. All the police said to the students was, “Hey folks, let’s go, this is vandalism,” after which they sprayed mace on them. At no point did the police warn the students that they were about to be sprayed, nor did they ever instruct the students to desist. The police failed to read students their Miranda rights at the time of cuffing but were dragged away to the police vehicle.
occupy california 
16 October 2009 at 4:11 pm |
Is the occupation still going on? Can you give more details about when the takeover happened, what the police response was, and what’s happened since then?
16 October 2009 at 4:44 pm |
[…] This statement from UCSC activists, dated yesterday, indicates that more than one student was arrested and maced, and charges that students were not given proper warning before police moved in. […]
16 October 2009 at 5:59 pm |
[…] to a second occupation. As I write and research this I found that it is already over, and the police already responded! The second occupation didn’t last 1 day. That is what happens when you occupy a building […]
16 October 2009 at 7:57 pm |
I do not think that it is asking to much for students to request the same treatment as any other person being arrested. By definition a right is a protection that a government is obligated to afford its citizens. Kai, get off your soap box. These students are frustrated and upset. Also, I want to remind you that this walk-out and the anti-budget cut movement was initiated by faculty(professors). This is not thoughtless, it is just possibly not organized as well as it could be.
Your attempts to justify police violence against youth is thin at best as an argument. People deserve verbal warnings if they are about to be physically injured by law enforcement. Down playing the affects of mace is insensitive and it is insult to injury, because it fails to acknowledge the essence of a violent act against another human.
I think this screams of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 1968 on a much smaller scale. The police don’t like young people getting uppity. Democracy is nothing if it is not dangerous.