The Vanguard spoke with two of the protesters who were up on the front lines of the confrontation. The confrontation took place right before the freeway on-ramp just past the Mondavi center.
As things developed, she and her friend ended up biking to the I-80. They were planning that the on-ramp would be blockaded or they would target the freeway. As they walked down Old Davis Road, there started to be more police cars and more police officers in riot geer.
Alexsa Sommers-Miller had also biked to the protest. She estimated that there were at least 250 protesters at the start of the confrontation.
“Presumably we were going to get on the I-80 and stop it, which was my intent and I’m sure a lot of people as well. We had that feeling when we were going there. A lot of people wanted to stop business as usual and really make people [realize] away that something big was happening.”
“They were saying it was for our safety that they were stopping us, but they easily could have slowed traffic rather than engage with us aggressively.” “The freeways are very valuable, they’re a national asset, millions of dollars of capital move down those freeways everyday. It’s very expensive to slow things down or to stop traffic for any substantial time.”
According to Ms. Sommers-Miller, police started lining a fair distance from the on-ramp, they started acting fairly aggressively and “[were] trying to look intimidating.”
Said Ms. Kresitch, “I was in the front row and we had our arms linked.” She continued, “We were moving forward and the police were lined up across from us.” The police issued a statement that they were unlawfully assembling and that if they went further, “actions might be taken against us to insure our own safety.”
Apparently what happened next was that the police began to use their non-lethal weapons against the crowd in an effort to halt their progress.
According to Ms. Sommers-Millers, police started threatening with their guns that shoot pellets with white powder with either tear gas or pepper spray or “something that was really irritating, “
“They started shooting in front of us, they started people, I don’t know how many were shot, but quite a few of my friends have welts on their legs. I got shot, I think twice on my legs.”
Ms. Kresitch told the Vanguard, “Basically what happened was we moved forward a few feet at a time in our line. Once we got a certain distance from them, they began firing pepper spray bullets at our knees and legs.” She continued, “I got hit a few times on the legs with these plastic bullets.”
The students kept marching and the police formed another line. Eventually, the students got too close to the line and the police began hitting them with their batons.
A lot of people got hit pretty hard, said Ms. Sommers-Miller. She got hit on the head and a received a glancing blow on her nose. “People were really beat up. It seemed like they were trying to hit people’s organs, they were trying to hit people really hard rather than hold them back.”
According to Ms. Krestich, somebody tripped and fell on the ground, she was being helped up by other people. “The police began pushing and striking students in the front with their batons. During that time, Laura Mitchell, who was arrested, fell on the ground and was hit with the batons and dragged away from the line and they cuffed her.”
With Laura Mitchell in custody, the confrontation turned into a standoff and a round of negotiations ensued where the police apparently offered to cite and release Ms. Mitchell if the crowd dispersed.
Said Natalia Kresitch, “After that, they spent awhile in negotiations, the head of the LGBT center was speaking with the police on behalf of Laura. They were trying to negotiate that we would leave the entrance to the on-ramp if she would be released.”
The crowd eventually dispersed on their own according to Alexsa Sommers-Miller. She didn’t know why everyone left, but some left because they would go easier on Laura Mitchell. Laura Mitchell had been pulled out of the crowd by the police.
“They used her as a bargaining chip to get us to disperse by offering just to cite rather than take her in and making her life more difficult. A lot of people wanted to leave for that reason and a lot of people wanted to leave because we weren’t getting anywhere, we weren’t going to be able to cross this police barricade that was carrying guns and scary and well armed.”
She continued, “We felt this large group of people could be more visible and useful somewhere else.”
Ms. Kresitich described what happened after the students left the I-80 on ramp.
After a lot of back and forth communications, they decided to go back into campus. They marched into campus and went to the library. The group marched in a loop around the bottom floor of the library asking students to join the protest. They then went to the science lecture hall, which had a class at the time, the group went into that lecture hall and asked students to join the strike – some did.
The group ended up at the intersection of Anderson and Russell. There were already police officers in the intersection when they got there and sat down in a circle.
“I was unsure at that point if the police were going to arrest people immediately because we ended up staying there for one to two hours and the crowd got very big towards the end. A lot of students that were biking between campus and the other side of Anderson stopped and joined the sit-in at that intersection.”
Towards the end, Ms. Kresitich said they had a really a large number of people there including the Davis Ensemble that had joined them. People were dancing in the intersection and sharing stories about how the budget cuts were affecting them personally.
The incident ended without any kind of police interactions with the protesters. She was not sure why there were no arrests. She said there were a few dozen police officers, some of them had put on riot geer, but nothing came of it. “I’m not sure why they didn’t do arrests at that point.”
Both women complained that the police reacted too violently to the incident.
Alexsa Sommers-Miller told the Vanguard, “When we were pushing forward they [the police] just took very powerful stances and just swinging at us aggressively. Some of them were worse than others.” She continued, “They were very physically aggressive, very intimidating and very scary.”
She described a number of minor injuries on herself and others. “I have at least five or six very substantial bruises, one on my face. One of my friends, I think he was shot or kicked in the leg, he was bleeding pretty severely and couldn’t walk. He was having a hard time putting his weight on his leg. They took him to get x-rays.” Everyone, she said, is fine, “no one is really hospitalized.”
Ms. Sommers-Miller felt that Laura Mitchell had been singled out by the police because of her visibility in this movement rather than her conduct being over and above the conduct of others. “I don’t think she was any more aggressive with the police. I know her personally and she was not being any more disagreeable than the rest of us. I don’t think she was behaving substantially differently towards the police.”
Ms. Mitchell had interacted with another of these police officers at other times. “She was very visible in the group and someone people looked to for guidance and what should we do next.” She concluded, “It is quite possible that the police targeted her as a leader in the group and just wanted to have someone.”
Natalia Kresitch was also concerned about the police response saying overall she felt it was a “very adversarial interaction.” She felt like there were no people in their protest that were not in anyway acting violent. “While the police were firing their rounds of pepper spray, we were chanting, ‘no violence’ and other words to indicate that we were not going to have a violent interaction.” She said, “We had an intentionality of acting non-violently.”
“I felt that there was a lot of unnecessary violence on the part of the police officers against the protesters. It seems like the batons were used very liberally.” She had at least four welts on her legs from being shot. “Not only that, but I think a lot of people were shocked by the way Laura Mitchell was treated as she was being restrained and arrested. At one point while she was on the ground, her shirt rode up, and it seemed like it was a demoralizing thing. I think a lot of people felt that way.”
Both protesters believed their efforts were effective.
Ms. Sommers-Miller said that even if people do not agree with their method, “I think what we did is showed a lot of people came together and made a raucous. For good or for bad there is something going on here that has motivated people to stop freeways. People are realizing that something’s wrong here.”
Ms. Kresitich likewise had a sense of accomplishment as well as solidarity with other UC’s. “It’s really amazing right now that every single UC in the UC System is participating in the strike. Not to mention almost every single state school and a huge amount of community colleges.”
She continued, “I just read a story this morning that an Oakland Elementary School had plans to walk out, the students. And that’s an Elementary School, I guess in solidarity with the strike which I thought was incredible.”
The students dispersed from Anderson and Russell somewhere around 7 pm last night but they plan to reconvene at noon today in the MU. The Vanguard will have continuing coverage of these protests.
Meanwhile here is a video clip that was filmed during some of the events yesterday.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
It seems to me that the Police were very concerned about protesters getting on the freeway. The Police presence during the day looked fairly hands-off and things only seemed to escalate when the protesters started heading for the freeway. A mass of people walking onto the freeway could easily have ended in death, either for a protester or an unwitting motorist. The Police were not going to allow pedestrians to illegally enter the freeway and their warning made that clear. I think the protesters got too enthusiastic about making a “statement” and went past peaceful protest. Freedom of speech does not include a license to break laws and endanger lives. The protest would have been more effective if it had not been taken in this dangerous direction.
I support the message of the protesters. It’s disappointing to see the message lost due to some bad choices by some of the protesters.
While I support the cause of the protesters, THE END DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS. Blocking freeway traffic takes away the rights of others to use the roads, is a public safety issue, and is unacceptable behavior. IMHO the police could have arrested every one of the protesters, and been well within their rights to do so. I think the police showed remarkable restraint. Nor did I think the protestors had a right to march through the library, disrupting the study of students who were there to use the library for what it was designed for.
Furthermore, when it comes time for these same students to obtain jobs, certain employment with security clearances may not be open to them – something they probably had not thought of.
Showing up en masse at the state capitol would have been far more effective a method of protest. Think of the effect if all those UC students had found a way to get their collective bodies to Sacramento on a single day, and camped out in front of the state capitol – thousands of them. And it would send a message to the real culprits in this economic mess.
And a more effective way to protest is to work within the system by getting laws changed – lobby your state , get parents involved. senators and assemblypersons to more fully fund higher education. Start up recall petitions if they don’t make an effort to do so. Start petition campaigns
When students resort to cutting off other people’s rights and disrupting the normal flow of traffic/operations, they do not bring a positive light to their cause.
I say hooray for the police dept. and a great job of keeping the protest under control and keeping the protesters off of the freeway.
“When students resort to cutting off other people’s rights and disrupting the normal flow of traffic/operations, they do not bring a positive light to their cause.”
I like the concept, but will people really listen? I don’t think the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam protests would have made much headway without significant illegal activity.
The protesters should shut down the entrances to several (or all) of the state prisons and demand a reevaluation of how we allocate money between education and the justice system. Focus attention on ways to divert more money to education.
I agree. Shutting down the freeway? Sounds way too dangerous. Whose idea was that? Getting cars going 65 mph and above to slow down is a more of a physics problem than an effective demonstration tactic. I’d like to know more about the actual strategic plan of the protests before I judge, but from the outside and from this report, I’m left to believe people were actually heading towards the freeway to confront 65 mph cars.
Your correct civil discourse, it wouldn’t have made much sense to try to stop traffic going 65 (which come on is more like 75). What they could have done would have been to block the off ramp and then cause a traffic jam that way and then go out onto the highway. Whether that is their thinking or not, I don’t know.
I’m all for the police blocking them, but using force to do so, is more problematic in my books. I agree with Alfonso, that the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam Protests would have accomplished little without illegal activity.
David,
So how else could the police had stopped them, by saying “pretty please”.
I’m sure the police gave them many warnings but the protesters refused to stop until they were forced to. From what I read he the police showed pretty good restraint, it could’ve really got ugly.
From what I saw and the stories I heard from people there, I would say it’s a little of both. At times the police exercised good judgment and restraint, at times, they probably went overboard.
Well in my opinion it was the students that went overboard by trying to storm the freeway. If some of them received minor injuries they brought it upon themselves.
I don’t think one negates the other. Yes, I think they probably shouldn’t have tried to storm the freeway. And yes, when you do something like that, you are likely to end up with minor injuries depending on how you define minor, but I don’t know that justifies everything that happened out there. I’m always reminded that the kids are not the experienced professionals in these exchanges.
I noticed that the Sacramento Bee story on this event (state/national protests on education funding) shared headlines with this story:
Bass promotes, gives raises to 20 staffers on final day as Assembly speaker
[url]http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/05/2584343/bass-promotes-20-staffers-boosts.html[/url]
I agree that blocking the highway is not a good idea.
However just for perspective, UCD students did shut down HWY 80 back in 1971 (the war was a more important issue) and the person who led that effort was later elected to the city council and was the grand marshall of a recent Picnic Day parade. As I recall a truck driver who was stopped by the crowd of students went after them with a tire iron – so there are other dangers besides speeding cars.
So those students were stupid in 1971 too.
wdf1:
Amazing, only Karen Bass can dole out 10% pay raises and say this reflects the tough times we are in. So glad she’s on her way out, she did so much damage to California’s fiscal health. That’s where these students should focus, not I80.
The police couldn’t have let them get on the on ramp, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to control people from going onto the freeway itself. I think it was smart tactic of the police to seize one person and negotiate with the protestors for her release- it seems to have changed the dynamic quite a bit.
I’m sympathetic to the cause, I just hope for more creativity in the tactics of protest. I feel like disrupting daily commerce mostly effect blue collar workers since they spend their time in the street trying to make a living. If you want to get the attention of the white collars, you have to disrupt the machinery they use in their offices, or disrupt their meetings. This did neither.
Let me guess, Alphonso… you either weren’t born &/or were pre-school in 1971… 1971… Bob Black… rail line (not I-80)(trains were how they transported munitions)… I’ve heard (I was 17, but not in Davis at the time) that Mr. Black actually didn’t participate… heard that his wife stood (sat) in for him… if it was I-80, please cite your sources…
BTW… Fire Marsha[u]l[/u]… Parade Marsha[u]l[/u]… Thurgood Marsha[u]ll[/u]… James Marsha[u]ll[/u].
“In this 1972(?) Aggie article, Black is the most prominent member of a group of 50 Davisites arrested for protesting the Vietnam war. They shut down I-80 for 20 minutes, and when dispersed by the highway patrol they shut down the Southern Pacific Railway.”
From the Davis Wiki: http://daviswiki.org/Bob_Black
Edit by Ted Buehler: http://daviswiki.org/Users/TedBuehler
“Let me guess, Alphonso… you either weren’t born &/or were pre-school in 1971”
Actually I am older than you and I was in Davis at the time.
According to the Project on Student Debt, California students seem to be doing quite well. For those graduating from Public, 4-year or above institutions in 2008, only 3 other states had a smaller percentage of their graduating class with debt (Fl. HI, NV). Only 4 other states had graduating classes with a lower average per student debt than California (UT, KY, NC, HI). When you also consider that per the US Census Bureau, in 2006-2008 California had the 13th highest median household income it is even more absurd for California college students to be screaming about the lack of funding for higher education.
Everyone, can you think of anything that the students can do that will attract enough attention to be able to result in the University system giving up a single dollar of its fee hikes? Is there any way to prevent higher education from becoming TOTALLY unaffordable for a majority of Californians, without, e.g.,disrupting the sacrosanct freeway traffic?
Wesley: Perhaps they are screaming because of the 32% fee increase this year after subsequent 10% increases, and it’s all fine to say that they are still paying less than at other systems, but you still need to factor in people planned to pay a lower amount and will now have to figure out where the extra money will come from.
They are also screaming about the cutbacks in program through furloughs and layoffs.
They are also screaming about the large increases in compensation to UC executives that have accompanied these cuts and fee increases. So while they are paying more, teachers and staff are paying less, the top execs are getting bonuses and increases.
Couple those all together, I’m surprised they are not more angry.
“Everyone, can you think of anything that the students can do that will attract enough attention to be able to result in the University system giving up a single dollar of its fee hikes?”
Sure – bus a bunch of people over to the entrance of Vacaville medical facility (a prison), shut down the entrance and demand a reduction of prison funding – more should go to education. Then take the buses up the road to Sacramento and shut down one of the Calpers offices while demanding state government pension reform.
Everyone, can you think of anything that the students can do that will attract enough attention to be able to result in the University system giving up a single dollar of its fee hikes? Is there any way to prevent higher education from becoming TOTALLY unaffordable for a majority of Californians, without, e.g.,disrupting the sacrosanct freeway traffic?
Yes. Make sure every single last student registers to vote in their home district and votes for state legislative reps based on the top priority of having a quality accessible education system. While they’re at it, make sure their parents vote for education friendly candidates, too.
The reason this kind of stuff happens (education gets screwed) is that not enough voters make this a priority in their lives.
It is a reasonable priority for everyone in California, because it will ensure a more stable and productive economy.
Actually, California voters have routinely passed measures prioritizing education in the state budget process. But if there is less revenue to go around — and there is drastically less revenue to go around right now — it doesn’t matter where education is as a priority. It will still get less money, because we all have less money.
Would you prioritize UCD funding above county funding for homeless and indigent medical care? Or do you want to try to get more revenue by raising taxes?
Actually, California voters have routinely passed measures prioritizing education in the state budget process. But if there is less revenue to go around — and there is drastically less revenue to go around right now — it doesn’t matter where education is as a priority. It will still get less money, because we all have less money.
I beg to differ on “routinely passed” (there have been measures voted down or that deprioritized education funding), but I agree that there have been important measures passed that have prioritized education, most notably prop 98.
There is a difference between voting for propositions and voting for legislative reps. There is also difference between following a hardcore “no new taxes/no exceptions” policy vs. critically evaluating which taxes would be worth raising for what purpose at what time. And conversely, which taxes should be lowered for what reason at what time. These are more complex discussions that politicians morph into simple-minded statements of first principles.
I believe we are at the point that current and potential future cuts to education (both K-12 and higher ed) will limit our ability to recover and grow economically, and may likely increase our future burden on social services. Accessible education is a driver for economic prosperity.
That brings up an interesting point, when was the last legislation that funded higher education, because I thought Prop 98 was k-12, no?
Prop. 98 also guarantees a certain amount of community college funding (that’s what’s included when you see “K-14” references), but in total, Prop. 98 favors K-12 education.
The wikipedia article on prop 98 is a reasonable summary:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_98_(1988)[/url]
That is all fine, but my point is that any funds increased for one part of the pie result in smaller pieces left over for the remainder. State education is in competition with local county government funding. I don’t see any realistic way to “grow the pie” so prioritizing for one — however urgent it seems — is going to result in reduced funding for others: parks, county services, etc.
I agree that Republicans are obstructing any method of increasing revenues. I am just pessimistic about solving funding problems with tax increases at the present time, at the state or local levels. There just aren’t that many groups of taxpayers left who can pay more. There would have to be spending cuts regardless. So to set UC funding as the priority means that you value county services less.
Don Shor
You increase revenues by taxing less, less restrictions and regulations on business and just letting free enterprise work. We’ve had a Democrat run congress in California for many years and look where it’s taken us, so for you to blame Republicans is very short sighted.
No one runs congress in California, that’s part of the problem.
Well if you let the Democrats have their way and tax the Hell out of us then it will only sink us deeper into the abyss. I for one am glad the Republicans are able to block some of the madness.
You just contradicted yourself, first you say we let Democrats run congress in california, now you’re saying you’re glad that Republicans are able to block “some of the madness” so which is it?
Well David, who’s in charge of Sacramento, who has the majority? Can the Republicans pass any of their own agenda? The only option currently open to Republicans is to put the brakes on some of the stupid Democrat bills. Can they block them all? No. But neither can the Republicans push through any tax cuts or much needed cuts to the giveaways that the Democrats give to the unions because they are bought and paid for by them.
As far as I can tell neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are in control in Sacramento. Neither side can pass legislation without agreement from the other. Therefore your initial statement was misleading and inaccurate. Democrats do not control Sacramento because it takes two-thirds votes to pass the budget with the governor signing.
My sympathies are with the students. The current economic situation and the consequent uncertainty for the future try everyone’s patience, especially those who haven’t been through a rough patch before. While there is plenty of blame to place for the budget problems in California, the fact of the matter is that we cannot afford to play stalemate with everyone’s lives. Californians need to make our priorities clear to our representatives and they need to act with dispatch to set goals make plans. If we all don’t stop squabbling and grandstanding, the future will be lost to a dismal present.