SANTA CRUZ, California – On Friday evening, a crowd of people gathered together at Porter College at UCSC for a dance party. Approximately half an hour in, dancers began moving the sound system to begin a roving dance party, with a crowd of approximately 150. As it rolled through a parking lot, a police cruiser began tightly following the dancers. Some grabbed a hold of fencing material off the side of the road, and dragged it to the center of the road, (intended to be used as some sort of barricade between the cruiser and the people). The crowd moved on and walked down an open-air corridor between two rows of dormitories. The sound system settled in the center of the corridor for several minutes as the party continued. The police cruiser following the crowd drove around the dormitories to other end of the corridor.
Without any warning, the crowd began rushing away from the sound system and the scattered array of 5 or 6 police on the other end of the corridor. The police began knocking people down on the ground and grabbing any terrified person running away from them. One bystander was leaving the scene as a police officer aggressively grabbed the person. The bystander tried to escape the certain arrest, and the resulting inertia knocked the police officer on her rear-end. As of now three people have been arrested, some of their charges include: “attempted lynching,” which means someone who tries to de-arrest someone; resisting arrest, carrying a weapon, and assaulting an officer.
update:
It appears as though 2 of the 3 arrested are out on bail.
occupy california 
25 September 2010 at 12:55 am |
The UC Police Need A Real Police Review Commission to establish a respectable policing and police officer training. Having a state wide police authority without local review leaves very little opportunity for police reform. The UC system has experimented with administration appointed police faux review. For A Police Review Commission to be an effective agency in Police Reform it must reflect the community that is Policed. The regents, and their chancellors are not effective representatives of students needs or interests. Any Police Review Commission who’s Commissioners are appointed by anyone other then the people elected to represent the community that is being policed is hoax. Commissioners could legitimately be appointed by a mix of Student Legislative Bodies, teachers unions, and local municipal elected officials.
Charges of “Attempted Lynching” or “Lynching” in reference to the alleged attempts of protesters to unarrest themselves, during these simple protests, are a trumped up sham and blatant act of disrespect to the hundreds of years of oppression upon “people of color” in this Nation.
25 September 2010 at 4:30 am |
[…] September 25, 2010 in Students Outdoor dance parties have often been a way for radical activists to draw attention on campus recently, and sometimes a staging ground for actions as well. Last night, an activist dance party at UC Santa Cruz ended in a clash with police. […]
2 October 2010 at 8:47 am |
[…] Not a moment too late. By gazuedro The catastrophe of last week’s dance party incidentally suppressed a piece of propaganda that is, at least for critique, worth a read. In the […]