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.
Yesterday, I posted about the greek riots, noting that they'd beat California by about 80 days in violent riots against the state. I guess I was off by about 79 days.......
What's so "progressive" about riots against the state?
More.....
1 comment:
We are blowing out our budget. At some point the government is going to run out of money. This is not an opinion. This is a fact. The government services that big govt types claim to be SO CRITICAL are really what is being put more at risk than private sector services. This is what I don't understand about liberals. They seem to be fine with abusive spending, justifying with the claim that government management of institutions is moral. But they are placing all this faith in government on a financial house of cards with debt as the foundation. And their own programs will be the hardest hit.
We are now seeing the result of the financial mismanagement that governments are prone to do. Students in CA are protesting higher tuition. But the shortage of funds is due to of lack of responsible government financial planning. There's nothing that can make money magically appear. These students might as well protest gravity.
Yes, there are calls by the dems over there to raise taxes on evil oil company profits. They can convince themselves that government is the good guy, but higher taxes would only be a bandaid. The unintended consequences would soon cancel out any short term windfall.
The solution will only come when people realize that over-reliance on government has set up a catastrophe that can't be solved by even more over-relance on government.
The question is whether the realization will occur only as a result of the catastrphe, or will people wake up first. I think the catastrophe will have to happen.
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