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Victims of Violence: When UC Police Attack
If you've taken a glance at the corporate press' headlines recently, you'd see something like this: "UC Santa Cruz Protest Turns Violent," or, my favorite, "Police Break Up Violent Protest at UC Regents Meeting." The mainstream media blatently suggests that it was the students - the protesters - that were violent. Yet, to have violence you have to have victims. 'cus if nothing or no one was hurt, how can you claim that any crime has been committed?
If you look at Wednesday's (Oct. 18, 2006) protest and all the reports and documentation, you'll see that, in fact, there were victims of violence. The victim wasn't property. The victims weren't the cops (except the one that sprayed himself with his own pepper-spray). The victims weren't the Regents (unless you call really having to pee a form of violence). For the most part, the victims weren't even the corporate visitors (one guy from the Chamber of Commerce claims he got spit on, but that's it). If you were present or if you looked at the documentation, you would see that the victims were, by and large, the protesters.
So.. if violence creates victims, and the victims were mostly protesters, who were the instigators of the violence? The police. This is my argument: that Wednesday's protest was in fact violent, and we should all abhor unjust violence, yet the majority of violence came in the form of pepper-spray in the eyes and batons to the bodies. If we are truly concerned about violence and safety, then we must also be concerned about the police.
If you look at Wednesday's (Oct. 18, 2006) protest and all the reports and documentation, you'll see that, in fact, there were victims of violence. The victim wasn't property. The victims weren't the cops (except the one that sprayed himself with his own pepper-spray). The victims weren't the Regents (unless you call really having to pee a form of violence). For the most part, the victims weren't even the corporate visitors (one guy from the Chamber of Commerce claims he got spit on, but that's it). If you were present or if you looked at the documentation, you would see that the victims were, by and large, the protesters.
So.. if violence creates victims, and the victims were mostly protesters, who were the instigators of the violence? The police. This is my argument: that Wednesday's protest was in fact violent, and we should all abhor unjust violence, yet the majority of violence came in the form of pepper-spray in the eyes and batons to the bodies. If we are truly concerned about violence and safety, then we must also be concerned about the police.

To republish photos, or for larger sizes, please contact sugarloaf [at] riseup.net - thanks! Also, please contact me if you feel uncomfortable having your photo displayed online.

Immediately after police snatched 3 activists, they used their batons to push away nearby protesters, eventually pepper-spraying the crowd.










This is the back of the same guy from above. He was dragged on the ground by cops before he was yanked away by friends.


Like most of those pepper-sprayed, these two just happened to be at the front of the crowd when the cops attacked.

Still recovering after being pepper-sprayed, how do you think these two will feel when they find out the corporate press is going to call them the violent ones?

oh and for the record, the Sentinel's photographer was smiling while he took photos of kids trying to wash the pepper-spray out of their eyes. In fact, the photo on the left is him taking this shot: http://www.santacruzphotogallery.com/gallery/protest/ucsc_protest4
what's to smile about?
what's to smile about?
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