Emeute universitaire à Berkeley, Californie – février 2010

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Rioters Clash with Police in Streets South of UC Berkeley

Dailycal.org

Friday, February 26, 2010

A crowd of more than 200 people swarmed the streets of Southside early Friday morning in a riot involving seven law enforcement agencies, runaway dumpsters, flaming trash cans, shattered windows and violent clashes between rioters and police.

What began as a dance party on Upper Sproul Plaza led to an occupation of Durant Hall at around 11:15 p.m. Thursday to raise support for the March 4 statewide protest in support of public education.

According to a statement distributed by the occupiers, the building was selected because of its symbolic nature. Durant Hall formerly housed the campus East Asian Library and the campus Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. It is now being renovated to become office space for the College of Letters and Science, which spurred activists to « reclaim » the space for students.

UCPD Captain Margo Bennett said the occupiers « cut a lock to get into the construction area and then cut a lock to get into the building » before vandalizing the area.

« There were windows broken, there was spray painting and graffiti on the interior, there was construction equipment that was tossed around, » she said.

The occupation evolved into a riot as it moved onto streets south of campus, where a protester broke several windows of the Subway at Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue at about 1:41 a.m.

Bennett said the occupiers were able to leave Durant Hall without police confrontation because UCPD did not have adequate staffing and the Berkeley Police Department had not responded to the scene per UCPD request before the occupiers left.

She added that UCPD believes many of the occupiers were not UC Berkeley students.

« Because of their manner of dress and their behavior, they did not resemble the students that we have become accustomed to dealing with over the past six months, » she said.

After moving off campus, the group grew and settled at Durant and Telegraph avenues.

Officers from UCPD, Oakland, BART and Albany police departments, as well as the California Highway Patrol and the Alameda County Sherriff’s Office, responded to the scene. All but four Berkeley Police Department officers on duty that night were dispatched to address the incident, according to Berkeley police Dispatcher Rayna Johnson.

« It’s a little hectic, » Johnson said.

Berkeley and UCPD officers stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a line on Telegraph Ave. facing the dancing crowd, which had formed around a stereo system blaring music from a shopping cart.

The tone of the gathering changed at about 1:55 a.m. when a dumpster was pushed into the center of the intersection and set on fire by members of the crowd. The Berkeley Fire Department responded as people danced on top of the dumpster and shouted, « Whose street? Our street! »

Employees of the Blakes on Telegraph bar and restaurant brought out buckets of water and fire extinguishers to douse the flames.

Officers physically pushed the crowd back so that Berkeley fire personnel could extinguish the flames. Sporadic fights broke out within the crowd, causing police to advance their line on the growing mob and use batons to push it back.

Two officers suffered minor injuries but did not require medical attention, according to a Berkeley Police Department press release.

Members of the crowd hurled glass bottles, plastic buckets, pizza and other objects at the police line. The crowd’s size and intensity fluctuated as the police and protesters clashed and multiple members of the crowd were detained by police.

Marika Goodrich, 28, a UC Berkeley senior, was arrested at the intersection of Durant and Telegraph avenues and booked for assault on a police officer, inciting a riot and resisting arrest, according to Berkeley police Officer Andrew Frankel. Zachary Miller, 26, a UC Berkeley alumnus and an organizer for the « Rolling University, » was also arrested at the intersection and was booked for inciting a riot, resisting arrest and obstructing a police officer.

Goodrich is being held on $32,500 bail and Miller is being held on $22,500 bail. Both are being held at the Berkeley City Jail and are scheduled to be arraigned March 1, according to Alameda County records.

No arrests were made on campus, according to Bennett.

At about 2:43 a.m., the mob accompanied the shopping cart as it traveled east on Durant.

As the crowd moved, a white Dodge Charger turned onto the street and people ran alongside the car as it advanced, a practice commonly referred to as « ghost riding the whip. »

Around 2:55 a.m., the crowd settled on College Ave. outside the Unit 1 residence halls, where some members propelled a dumpster down Durant Ave. toward police.

About 15 minutes later, after the crowd launched a second dumpster down Durant Avenue, a line of police vehicles charged through the streets, scattering the crowd in all directions.

Police ended the riot at approximately 3:15 a.m.

When the crowd had left Durant Hall earlier in the night, UCPD Chief Mitch Celaya said the main concern for police was to assess the damage thus far and monitor the crowd as it proceeded down Telegraph Avenue.

« We’re going to hopefully secure the exterior, » he said. « We’re going to take a look to see what, if any, kind of damage has been caused. We’re concerned about the group as they march around, that they don’t commit any acts of vandalism, not just to our property but to the city. »

Although the occupation had been planned, the decision to move off campus could not be attributed to any one person, according to Callie Maidhof, a representative for the occupiers.

« If you get all these people here, what they decide to do is what matters, » Maidhof said. « It’s not whoever may or may not have planned it, that’s irrelevant at a certain point. »

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande, condemned the occupation and subsequent riot in a statement sent Friday to the campus community where they said they believe the majority of the occupiers were not UC Berkeley students.

« Initial investigation indicates that about 100 people came onto campus with clear intent to break into at Durant Hall, » they said in the statement. « Sadly, such action does incredible damage to our advocacy efforts with Sacramento and with the California public to preserve public higher education. »

Shaunt Attarian, Chris Carrassi, Tomer Ovadia, Sarah Springfield, Zach E.J. Williams and Mihir Zaveri of The Daily Californian contributed to this report.

Berkeley Riot: students battle police on Telegraph Av, Thursday

Sfgate.com

26 02 2010

Very late on a Thursday night that saw Cal Basketball get to one win from the Pac-10 Title, Berkeley saw a riot: people – some students, others not – battled Berkeley police on Telegraph Avenue, not far from Haas Pavilion.

According to The Daily Californian, the late night melee started as an occupation of Durant Hall as prelude to the March 4th statewide « Day of Action » and it became a fight with Berkeley and BART Police that included an estimated 200 people, burning trash cans, throwing glass jugs of wine, and damaging a retail establishment.

The video captures the scene at the point where the police formed a wall along Telegraph Avenue blocking access to the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph Avenue. In the video (by Narukami on YouTube), the woman was talking about how police punched her in the nose, when they just quickly arrested her as she was talking:

The Daily Cal reports:

Several protesters occupied Durant Hall in support of the statewide day of action on March 4, according to a statement given by Asaf Shalev, a spokesperson for the occupiers. Shalev is a former employee of The Daily Californian.

About 15 occupiers occupied the hall since around 11:15 p.m, according to Callie Maidhof, a student organizer and UC Berkeley graduate student. People appeared to be moving in and out of the building and some were on the roof.

Around 1:30 a.m., people appeared to be leaving the hall and marching to Upper Sproul Plaza. Protesters marched onto the intersection of Telegraph Ave. and Bancroft Way throwing over trash cans. One individual broke the window to Subway.

The blog UC Regents (Live) reports that Durant Hall was selected as the place to occupy because the protesters say increased student fees were used to finance a construction bond of $1.3 billion to re-start a once-stalled renovation process. This is a reprint of the organizer’s manifesto:

Why Durant Hall?

This communique was issued by organizers of the event…

Architecture has, like other growing phenomena, to go to school before it can wisely be emancipated. It is a distinctly promising sign of future power, for a young people… to forget self for the time being in the quiet, assiduous acquisition of knowledge already established by others. The time for fresh personal expression will come later.

– John Galen Howard, 1913 Accelerate: we are here to help architecture make the leap to emancipation. The architect John Galen Howard, who designed and oversaw the construction of what is now called Durant Hall at the beginning of the last century, was a hesitant man. We say: the time for fresh personal expression is now! There is no question that we are already the product of other peopleâ€™s assiduously accumulated knowledges, so many that they become impossible to catalog exhaustively. The accumulation of knowledge is a library, perhaps, but it is also a struggle, a movement, a tactic. Likewise, the acquisition of knowledge does not have to be quiet – next to the sound system, self is forgotten and the commune emerges. The dance party: a distinctly promising sign of present power.

Future power too. On March 4, UC Berkeley students, workers, and faculty will march in solidarity with those from other UCs, CSUs, community colleges, and K-12 schools across California and the country as a whole. Like this building, reclaimed from the graveyard of financial speculation, we will reclaim the streets of Oakland in conjunction with an international day of action for public education to be free and democratic.

For the last two years, Durant Hall has been little more than a shell, surrounded by piles of rubble and heavy machinery, themselves surrounded by uneven rows of chain-link fencing. No longer is there any trace of the library it once was â€” the East Asian Library, now moved across campus to a new building named after an insurance mogul who founded the notorious AIG. Language has been uprooted, pruned, and replanted as well. The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures went with the library, and in the process lost half its Japanese, Korean, and Chinese classes as well as the faculty that taught them – over 1,500 curious students will be turned away this year. Subtracted from the flow of campus life, Durant Hall has existed only as a barrier, an inconvenience, a silent witness to the frustration of the thousands of students, workers, and faculty protesters who surrounded the neighboring Wheeler Hall and clashed with police last November.

But apparent emptiness conceals the movement beneath the surface, behind its fenced-off walls: capital flows through its veins. « Capital Projects, » the administration of the University of California calls them. As we now know, the UC administration has used not only studentsâ€™ tuition, but also the promise of future tuition increases, to secure the bonds and bond ratings necessary to channel ever increasing resources into construction projects. They will always need more money, and it will always be our money. A general concern that changes the way we see the campus that surrounds us. But if there is one building in particular that exemplifies this process, it is Durant Hall: its renovation was halted in 2008 for lack of funds, and only started up again after the administration sold $1.3 billion in construction bonds last May backed by our fee hike as collateral. Its melancholy fate is to become yet another administration building. Durant Hall will be inhabited by deans and staff of the College of Letters and Science, but it has already been occupied by a bloated administration with private capital on its mind.

Capital, like architecture, is a growing phenomenon, but one that never matures. It pushes outward continuously in all directions, always presupposing an endless, spiraling expansion. New endpoints replace old ones in smooth succession, projecting themselves onto the grid of the future, erasing languages, knowledges, and histories that do not fit easily into the right angles of its blueprints. But we will not let their future bulldoze our present. We have our own bulldozers: dance parties to reclaim dead buildings, marches to reclaim the streets. On March 4, fight back!

ESCALATE – OCCUPY – RECLAIM

Signed,

The College of Debtors in Defiance.

Stay tuned.

UC Berkeley fee protest turns rowdy

sfgate.com

Kevin Fagan,Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writers

Saturday, February 27, 2010

(02-26) 12:35 PST BERKELEY — Bay Area students, faculty and organizers revving up for a series of protests and rallies next week over fee increases and cutbacks to public education condemned the destruction and violence at UC Berkeley late Thursday by demonstrators promoting the March 4th events.

What started as a nighttime, open-air dance party in Upper Sproul Plaza with up to 200 people quickly soured into a riot as protesters vandalized a vacant university building and then lit trash cans on fire and clashed with police on Telegraph Avenue.

Two people have been taken into custody in connection with the riot. More arrests are possible, police said.

« This casts a shadow on the majority of our students who are working constructively toward budget justice, » said Phil Klasky, an ethnic studies professor at San Francisco State University who is helping organize a March 4 picket and rally. « We do not condone violence in any form. »

Klasky said frustration is understandable given the increased fees combined with the unavailability of courses for students – but not violence.

The clash began at 11:30 p.m. Thursday, when police responding to complaints of loud music found dozens of people dancing and drinking in Upper Sproul, with about 30 individuals surrounding nearby Durant Hall.

Another 10 or so people had cut the locks of the south gates of a fence surrounding the hall, and were inside the building dancing as they left a trail of graffiti and broken windows, said UC Berkeley spokeswoman Janet Gilmore.

Some in the group strung up a banner reading « March 4th » on the outside wall, a reference to Thursday’s national Day of Action. In the yard out front, others overturned portable toilets and tossed construction equipment, Gilmore said.

Police can’t get in

University police officers called to the scene were prevented by protesters from entering the building, but made no arrests as they waited for more officers to arrive, she said.

Before the other officers arrived, the crowd, including those in the building, moved south to Telegraph Avenue to chant protest slogans and dance in the street.

At around 1:30 a.m., arguments turned tense between the protesters and Berkeley police who were monitoring the gathering, and within 20 minutes some in the crowd lit a Dumpster trash receptacle on fire and shoved it toward officers, police said.

That’s when a full-out riot erupted. As officers pushed the crowd back so firefighters could get at the flaming garbage bin, protesters flung bottles and rocks at police, authorities said.

A half-dozen local police agencies were called in to help contain the crowd, including the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and the California Highway Patrol.

« The crowd got out of control, » said Berkeley police spokesman Officer Andrew Frankel.

Two arrests

The protest was finally quelled by 3:06 a.m., leaving debris and still-flaming trash cans all over Telegraph Avenue near the university’s entrance, officers said.

Cal student Marika Goodrich, 28, and former student Zachary Miller, 26, were arrested and booked into Berkeley City Jail on suspicion of inciting a riot and resisting arrest. Goodrich, held on $32,500 bail, was also booked for allegedly assaulting a police officer, and Miller, held on $22,500 bail, was booked on suspicion of obstructing a police officer.

Nobody was seriously hurt, officials said.

The takeover of Durant Hall was the first planned building occupation since last semester, when students seized campus buildings at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University. Students said they seized the hall – a shuttered library being turned into an administration building – because it symbolizes wasteful spending.

Renovation crews who have been working on Durant arrived Friday to find makeshift barricades of lumber and debris left by protesters inside the chain-link fence, and graffiti reading « I’m pissed off, » and « This is our university, » said Joe Salow, supervisor for West Coast Construction, the general contractor for the renovation project.

« Such action does incredible damage to our advocacy efforts with Sacramento and with the California public to preserve public higher education, » Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said in a statement Friday.

Damage on Telegraph

Noah’s Bagels manager Gina Tooley said a trash can in front of her store at Telegraph and Durant avenues was still on fire when she got to work at 5 a.m. « I was scared, » she said. « I thought someone had robbed the store. »

The store that appeared to suffer the worst damage was Subway at Telegraph and Bancroft Way, where several windows and glass doors were broken.

First-year student Andrew Albright walked through Sproul Plaza Friday morning, where there was no visible evidence left of the night’s events, but he had heard about the damage.

« It’s ridiculous, » he said. « I think it’s not a conducive way to state your opinion. »

Chronicle staff writer Nanette Asimov contributed to this report. E-mail the writers at kfagan@sfchronicle.com and jtucker@sfchronicle.com.

Rally Turns Violent, As Californians Protest Education Budget Cuts

businessinsider.com

Gus Lubin | Feb. 26, 2010,

There was bloodshed and fire on the streets of Berkeley, CA, as a late-night student rally turned violent.

Students at UC Berkeley occupied a university building in support of next Thursday’s state-wide protest against education budget cuts. At least 15 students were seen on top of the building around midnight, and then marching through local streets and kicking over trashcans and smashing windows, according to the Daily Californian. Around 1:30 a.m., police in riot gear intervened.

Like we needed another reminder of the similarities between California and Greece, where protests against their austerity budget recently turned violent (note: the photo for this article shows yesterday’s riot in Greece).

The Berkeley riot picked up steam throughout the night.

Daily Californian:

At 1:55 a.m., a dumpster appeared to be on fire in the middle of Telegraph Ave. An individual pushed the dumpster on its side as people appear to be dancing around and on top of it.

At about 2:05 a.m., a fight appeared to have broken out in the middle of Telegraph Ave. and Durant Ave. Berkeley police responded to the scene, pushing people away south on Telegraph Ave.

At 2:10 a.m., protesters appeared to have formed a line across Telegraph Ave. in the Durant Ave. intersection chanting « whose street, our street. » Police appeared to have formed a line opposite the protesters near Bank of America.

At about 2:25 a.m., protesters appeared to be throwing glass jugs of wine at the police.

At about 3:05 a.m., about five police cars blocked off the intersection at College Ave. and Durant Ave. Several protesters appeared to be marching down College Ave.

Late-night Protest At UC Berkeley Turns Violent

Feb. 27, 2010

Late-night Protest At UC Berkeley Turns Violent; 2 Arrested After Protesters Clash With Police

(AP) BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) – A late-night demonstration over budget cuts turned violent in Berkeley when protesters broke into a campus building, torched trash cans, smashed windows and threw rocks and bottles at police, authorities said Friday.

Police arrested two people near the University of California, Berkeley campus, said Officer Andrew Frankel, a spokesman for the Berkeley Police Department.

The unrest began around 11 p.m. Thursday after a crowd of more than 100 people gathered on campus for an open-air dance party to build support for an upcoming statewide protest over education funding cuts.

Students and activists have staged demonstrations in recent months at public colleges across California to protest deep budget cuts that have led to steep tuition hikes, enrollment cuts, faculty furloughs and reduced course offerings.

In Berkeley, about 50 people broke through a fence surrounding Durant Hall, which is closed for renovation, and about 20 entered and occupied the building, said Cpt. Margo Bennett of the UC Police Department.

The group smashed windows, sprayed graffiti, damaged construction equipment, knocked over portable toilets and hung up a banner promoting the March 4 rally, UC officials said. Others blocked police from entering the building.

UC police is investigating the incident, Bennett said. It’s unclear how many of the people involved were UC Berkeley students.

The crowd later marched to nearby Telegraph Avenue, where protesters broke the glass doors of a Subway restaurant and set fire to trash bins, Frankel said.

More than 40 police officers from several local agencies arrived to subdue the crowd, which pelted the riot gear-clad officers with rocks, beer bottles and other projectiles, Frankel said. Two officers suffered minor injuries.

The two people arrested were 28-year-old Marika Goodrich and 26-year-old Zachary Miller, Frankel said. They were booked on charges that include resisting arrest and inciting a riot.

Goodrich is a UC Berkeley student, and Miller was a Berkeley student last semester but is not registered this semester, according to UC officials.

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau condemned the vandalism and violence, saying it « does incredible damage to our advocacy efforts with Sacramento and with the California public to preserve public higher education. »

At UC Santa Cruz, officials have sent summons to 45 students accused of occupying and damaging a campus building in a November protest against fee hikes. The students have been ordered to appear before the director of student judicial affairs, who has the authority to issue sanctions ranging from a warning to expulsion, said spokesman Jim Burns.

Rallies, marches, teach-ins and class walkouts are planned at college campuses and public spaces in California and other states on March 4, which is being called a « National Day of Action for Public Education. »

(This version corrects 13th paragraph to say Santa Cruz protest was in November.)

Two Protestors Arrested After Cal Riots

ktvu.com

February 26, 2010

BERKELEY. Calif. — A party to protest budget cuts turned violent early Friday with protesters damaging UC Berkeley’s Durant Hall and then spilling over into the city streets, igniting trash cans and Dumpsters, smashing windows and clashing with police.

Authorities said at least two people had been arrested and the damage from the melee was evident throughout the campus and adjoining streets.

Hundreds of people, both students and non-students, had gathered at the plaza for the dance party to raise awareness about an upcoming protest over budget cuts scheduled to take place on March 4, university spokeswoman Janet Gilmore said.

Authorities said sometime around 11:15 p.m., a group of protesters began occupation of Durant Hall, vandalizing the building.

The crowd then grew to more than 200 and poured into nearby streets. By 1:45 a.m., fueled by anger and alcohol, the crowd reeled completely out of control at the intersection of Durant and Telegraph avenues.

Officers from the campus police and the Berkeley police department, as well as police from Oakland and BART and officers from the California Highway Patrol responded to the scene.

Riot-geared officers stood shoulder-to-shoulder on Telegraph, facing off against the crowd. But the violence continued to escalate and exploded when a Dumpster was set ablaze.

« Over the course of an hour, hour and a half we saw five acts of arson, » said Andrew Frankel of the Berkeley Police Department.

Organizers said the incident was not planned and that the riot in the street was a spontaneous reaction from a crowd who didn’t feel like words were enough anymore.

“I think [it’s] part of the movement. That’s something that’s worth fighting for,” said protest organizer Callie Maidhof.

One officer was hit with a fire extinguisher, and another was hit in the neck by the metal cap of a fire hydrant, Berkeley police Officer Frankel said. He did not have information on the extent of the officers’ injuries.

Authorities said fights then broke out and the crowd began hurling objects at windows and the officers as they moved in. The disturbance, police said, was finally completely under control shortly after 3 a.m.

The two people arrested were Marika Goodrich, a 28-year-old woman from Berkeley who is facing charges of assault on a police officer and resisting arrest, and Zachary Miller, a 27-year-old Berkeley man who faces charges of inciting a riot, resisting arrest and attempting to disarm a police officer.

Both will be in court Monday for arraignment.

~ par Alain Bertho sur 27 février 2010.

Publié dans émeutes, riots