By Sarah Morrison.
Police arrested 65 students and local protesters at 4.40 a.m. this morning inside UC Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall – a building that had been informally taken over by students since Monday of this week.
The protesters, who had been sleeping, studying and holding workshops in the building as part of a larger protest against recent fee increases, faculty furloughs and alleged police brutality hoped to “open the university” to the larger student community through their demonstrations. They have been charged with misdemeanor trespassing and are currently in the process of being released from Santa Rita jail, where they have been held all day.
According to a UC Berkeley spokeperson, the group included approximately 41 UC Berkeley students and 24 individuals not affiliated with the campus. One additional individual, who officials say was being disruptive, was arrested outside of the building, bringing the total number of arrests to 66.
UC officials said they arrested the group to prevent disruptions to the final examination schedule – set to start tomorrow – and to protect the rest of the student population not involved with the 24-hour presence inside Wheeler Hall. They said that the protestors had planned and publicized an all-night, unauthorized concert tonight in the Hall that would include artists and guest DJs.
Yet, the protestors said they were taken by complete surprise this morning, because they thought they had an informal agreement with the police who had been monitoring them since they entered the building at the start of the week. They students had said previously they would leave the Hall when the concert was over, late Friday or early Saturday morning, and certainly before exams started.
“Throughout the week Wheeler has been a fully-functioning university space, where students, professors and visitors have come in, taught and even given lectures,” said UC Berkeley senior Will Reeves. “Police would come in every evening and remind us that we were illegally trespassing but they never made us leave. This created an informal agreement between us and we thought it was okay.”
Reeves, who said that most of the protestors were asleep when police entered the building this morning, added: “Absolutely no one had any clue this was going to happen.”
While no one has yet come forward with allegations of police brutality, some of the students involved said that they thought the situation had been handled particularly badly.
Roey Kruvi, a third year geography student at UC Berkeley was sleeping in the hall when he was arrested this morning. He said he was put in zip-tie handcuffs and taken down to the basement of the hall where he and the other protestors were kept for two hours without any of their possessions.
“We were not allowed to speak to lawyers, we had all our stuff taken from us, and we were kept unaware of what was going to happen to us,” he said, noting that he did not think the police went beyond normal tactics the students had come to expect. “It was a freezing cold room where we were kept and some students had no shoes on. One boy did not even have pants on – he was left in boxers and a t-shirt in the cold all day.”
Kruvi said that it took the police more than four hours to process all the protestors once they arrived at Santa Rita jail, stressing that they were never told clearly what was going on.
As of now, protestors are being released from Santa Rita jail with court dates organizes for January 2010. Many of the students being released will now have to start preparations for final examinations tomorrow. According to UC officials, individuals with prior warrants could not be released until bail was posted.
According to the students, the concert will still go ahead tonight in the form of a protest rally for those arrested. Performer Boots Riley of the Coup is expected to attend.