Crime & Safety

Protesters Spend the Night On Campus After Clashing with Cops

After a day of clashes with police leading to dozens of arrests, Occupy Cal demonstrators gathered on the steps of Sproul Hall and remained there through the night.

Hundreds of Occupy Cal demonstrators occupied the steps outside Sproul Hall through the night, after a day of action on campus to protest tuition hikes and budget cuts led to .

More than 1,000 protesters gathered on campus during the day, with numbers whittling down to a few hundred by 2 a.m. early Thursday morning. UC Berkeley police stood at the sidelines in riot gear, while the remaining Occupy Cal group chanted and discussed their action plan — which included the idea of a general strike across the UC system next Tuesday, Nov. 15.

Tents set up earlier in the day Wednesday were dismantled by police in the early evening and again just before 10 p.m., leading demonstrators to begin a sit-in without an encampment. Some brought sleeping bags and blankets and spent the night on the steps and the ground outside Sproul Hall. Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Harry le Grande told the protesters Wednesday evening that they could gather at the site 24-hours-a-day throughout the week, as long as no tents were used.

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When asked if accusations made by protesters of police brutality were correct, one UC Berkeley police officer referred Berkeley Patch to YouTube, which he said demonstrated the crowd-control methods used by the police during the day. One video shows UCPD jabbing protesters with batons in an effort to disperse the crowd and break a line. 

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