Berkeley, December 6: "It is our duty to fight for our freedom"

Police Repeatedly Stop, Corral and Attack Student Protesters in the Home of "Free Speech"—but the People Stay in the Streets

December 10, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From a reader:

Several hundred protesters gathered in Sproul Plaza on the University of California Berkeley campus on Saturday night to join with the massive nationwide outcry against the decisions not to indict the police who killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Shouts of “Black Lives Matter!” filled Berkeley as the march took off down Telegraph Ave, soon growing to around 1,000. The march followed an action on Thursday by the Black Student Union on campus shutting down the Golden Bear Cafe on the campus.

The demonstrators held signs: “We are all one bullet away from being a #” and “It is our duty to fight for our freedom.” One student carried a sign with a quotation from Franz Fanon, “We revolt because we can no longer breathe,” drawing a link to Eric Garner’s dying words.

“I’m here because it’s not possible for me to sit down while my people are killed,” a Black freshman at Mills College in Oakland who was at the protest told the Daily Californian. “It seems like no one…understands what it’s like. Nobody gets why I’m angry all the time. I cried when I heard that (the officer who shot Michael Brown) wasn’t indicted. It made me feel unsafe.”

Protesters also denounced the death of Kayla Moore, a transgender woman who died in police custody in Berkeley last year, and the abduction of 43 students by police in Mexico.

After marching down Telegraph Avenue they went to downtown Berkeley and staged a die-in at a busy intersection. Many of the shoppers and movie goers expressed their support for the protest, raising arms, chanting, etc. The next stop was the Berkeley police station. There, while some protesters stood in front of riot police with their hands raised, “don’t shoot”-style, others performed a dance and still others sat down in the street in front of the police station singing a calls and response version of an old civil rights protest song, “Which side are you on?” (“freedom's side”)

When protesters continued the march, police suddenly massed and blocked the street with scores of riot equipped officers. Police clubbed demonstrators, knocking several older folks to the ground with their clubs. A few minutes later, police fired smoke bombs and flash grenades into the crowd of protesters. 

People broke through the line, and marched down University Avenue toward Interstate 80. At the bottom of University near the freeway ramp a line of riot police blocked the march. The media reported that more than 100 police from all over the Bay Area were called in to reinforce Berkeley’s cops.

As the march continued, lines of police repeatedly blocked its path. The protest was broken into smaller chunks and forced on dark residential streets. The people, many very new to protests, were determined and creative, scaling fences, to get back on the main Berkeley artery.

For hours the area around the campus was an intense scene of protest, teargas and pigs. Some of the march had made it back and many more came to join the protest. There was a tense standoff at the corner of Channing and Telegraph. Walls of riot police with gas masks formed a ring around the intersection facing out at students on all four sides –a brutal but fearful occupying army. Students were chanting “Eric Garner, Michael Brown. Shut it Down. Shut it Down!”

Many students were enraged, some terrified, some crying, others joining the chants, processing the shock of seeing the real nature of the enforcers up close for the very first time. Some had even been unaware of the nationwide outrage surrounding the police murders of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. One white student observing the scene asked, “What are you trying to accomplish, why here, why not go to the State Capitol?” A slightly older Black student explained that the courts didn't work, the police kept killing people, and so people need to be in the streets, where they could be heard.” 

Many were enraged at the repression—they chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, the police state has got to go.” Police declared the assembly unlawful and later surged at the crowd. Police used tear gas against protesters on Telegraph Avenue also gassing those returning from a concert at Zellerbach Playhouse on the campus as well as people inside stores. Some people were hit by rubber bullets. When some sought refuge in the passageway where Revolution Books and other stores are located, the police shot teargas inside. Police continued to repress the protesters, blocking them, threatening them, splitting them up, while protesters continued to resist. The last protesters were reportedly dispersed around 3 a.m.

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