Tonight as I was getting ready to get to bed early in order to get some sleep before tomorrow’s Occupy the Ports action in Oakland, I foolishly checked my internets one more time. I was dumbfounded to find a new article from the Daily Californian, stating how one of the occupiers from OccupyCal had been detained that afternoon on the lawn in front of Sproul Hall. And just I was about to post the first version of this, I read of his release.
Apparently, the police officers simply walked up and detained him. According to Occupy Cal’s facebook page, the officers cited California Welfare and Institutions Code Section 5150, explaining it as a code that
allows officers to take into custody any individual who ‘as a result of mental disorder, is a danger to others, or to himself or herself’ and place them in a county designated facility approved by the State Department of Mental Health
Alex is a student I’ve seen around often. I remember seeing him on the afternoon of the 9th, when so many of us were brutalized by the UCPD and company. I remember there was a fairly sweet picture of him giving a big fat peace sign to the UCPD when they came back a couple nights later to destroy the camp, his cat on his shoulder.
Last night, in responding to a text that the occupiers were in need of assistance, I visited with him and the others, offering what help I could. What immediately struck me last night was that he wasn’t talking, but communicating on written pieces of paper. I assumed, and later learned from a comrade that it was true, that he had taken a vow of silence, or a talking-strike.
Now, whatever your opinion of this tactic is - it does make simple logistical tasks, like cleaning up the encampment (what we were doing last night), a bit difficult – I can attest to the fact that Alex’s detention on the grounds of 5150 – if that is indeed what happened– is pure horseshit.
Last night, while deliberating about what to do following warnings from officers that they were going to once again clear the encampment, Alex offered numerous insightful and helpful comments, via written slips of paper read aloud by other occupiers. Once decisions had been made, he set about working to make sure they were done. He’s a normal student, like the rest of the occupiers. Also: I played with his cat.
Alex's cat Obi
Two things:
- If they were in fact citing 5150 in Alex’s case, it was a thinly veiled tactic to show what they are willing to do to eliminate the physical presence of occupiers on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, and any other piece of The Regent’s “property.” As such, it is effective for them because it does, in fact, subtract an agent from the field, while psychologically intimidating a great many others – they are showing how ruthless they can and are willing to be.
- If they were NOT citing 5150, it is even worse. They are simply blatantly showing their disrespect for due process, the law, and simple human welfare.
More importantly, however, is the fact that Alex was somewhere being detained and brutalized – probably physically and psychologically – as a result of the fact that Chancellor Birgeneau is simply willing to do so in order to maintain the status quo. Alex is a student at the University of California, and the University of California has executed Gestapo-like tactics to terrorize him and the rest of us.
His detention and relatively swift release leads me to think that it was either the unsustainability of the 5150 justification, or the fact that it was an outright lie, which makes his detention of the second-form variety – a pure scare tactic.
This is a blatant declaration of war by the UCPD, The Regents, and Chancellor Birgeneau on the students of the University of California, and should not be tolerated. It is disgusting and disgraceful, even for an entity that is already ready and willing to physically beat us, and we should not let them hear the end of our grievances.
