UC Berkeley announces plan to install extra fencing around tree-sit, starve out sitters

by gobears

Sat, Nov 17, 2007 1:22AM

"Based upon the advice of UC Berkeley campus Chief of Police Victoria Harrison, the University intends to install additional fencing to secure the site prior to the removal of the tree siters. The current extent of fencing has proven inadequate to prohibit the movement of persons and supplies from the interior of the fenced area to the exterior and vice versa. In order to remove the tree sitters from the trees and dismantle their living structures and circulation devices without unnecessary risk to the protesters or University security personnel, Chief Harrison believes it is essential to establish a security perimeter that is larger than the currently existing perimeter. Every action that may be taken by the University will be directly related to public safety and life safety concerns."

--Charles R. Olson, Sanger & Olson
Attorney for The Regents of the University of California
November 7, 2007

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§Detective MacAdam: University unable to safely remove defendants from the Oak Grove trees

by gobears

Sat, Nov 17, 2007 1:22AM

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"I believe that defendants have no intention of leaving the trees and will resist any efforts to remove them. In my daily observations, I have counted a total of 4 'sleeping dragons,' which are steel tubes commonly used by individuals who do not want to be removed from a site they are inhabiting. In my experience, such individuals place both of their arms through the ends of such a steel tube and then chain their hands together in the center while they are wrapped around the branch or the trunk of the tree from which they do not want to be removed. They cannot be cut without risking severe injury to the individual's arm.

"Our department does not believe that, under the circumstances (how high above the ground defendants are sitting, the precarious structures they have constructed, the efforts they have demonstrated to resist any actions on the part of my department to remove their sites, as well as the presence of 'sleeping dragons'), we are able to safely remove defendants from the Oak Grove trees."

--Detective D. Wade MacAdam
University of California, Berkeley Police Department
September 10, 2007

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