They were quickly surrounded by more than 100 police officers standing shoulder to shoulder and decked out in full riot gear. When the activity began in the wee hours Wednesday morning, about two dozen protesters and a handful of unhoused people were scattered around the park. You can’t just tear down stuff and keep moving them like cattle.” If the city and people who are constituents want to really house folks, they have to have these conversations with the people. Misty Cross, a co-founder of the Moms 4 Housing activist group, drew a direct line between displacement at the park Wednesday and ongoing campaigns against the Wood Street encampment in West Oakland, where “they just got a temporary stay order from the judge, but it’s a continuous thing. Some people would call that violent, but let me point out that it was done carefully so that nobody was harmed, and it was about stopping this horrible invasion into a public park.” I mean, a lot of equipment was destroyed today. “People will do all kinds of different things. If they come and try to fence again, you know, I think people will be following around and de-fencing as they did today,” Ventura said in part. “A lot of people are gonna camp out, try to hold down this space. Maxina Ventura, a member of the People’s Park Council, called the university’s actions at the park Wednesday “pure evil. It’s about bringing people together, building the movement, and using all of our individual strengths to come together and fight back against the UC.” We have to have eyes on them at all times. “We can’t let the UC get away with what they tried to get away with tonight. “I want to emphasize we need people at the park, 24-7 from now on, right?” organizer June Nelson said. “I’m just not willing to let this go away.”
“I’m going to stay here until whatever happens, happens,” Smith said Wednesday afternoon, sitting atop a ramshackle building at the center of the park. Protesters tore down a fence that UC Berkeley had erected around the park early this morning after more trees were cut down to make way for student housing. BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 03: People’s Park is seen from this drone view in Berkeley, Calif., on Wednesday, August 3, 2022. They said they are trying to preserve what’s left of the park after construction crews had already cut down a majority of the towering trees. The university plans to build housing for more than 1,000 students and up to 100 units for unhoused residents and people at risk of homelessness.īryce Smith, a biology and business major at UC Berkeley, was among dozens of demonstrators who bypassed the fence and barricades. BERKELEY - UC Berkeley’s attempt to tear down the historic People’s Park and build a major student housing project descended into chaos on Wednesday as protesters faced off with police, destroyed a barricade erected around the park and ransacked pricey construction equipment, reigniting the park’s fiery history of activism.Ī tense standoff erupted on Wednesday morning after university officials worked quickly in the pre-dawn hours to fence in the park and clear the way for demolition crews as part of their plan to redevelop the site, once a cradle of 1960’s political protest.
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