Were the UC Berkeley Protesters Justified?

Were the UC protesters justified? Take the poll at the bottom of this page.

All was quiet at Tolman Hall Friday morning, representing the calm after the storm of protests the day before. 

Thursday marked against the cuts and fee hikes made by the UC system in recent years. A coalition of students, staff and faculty are demanding a reversal of recent systemwide fee increases and access to the UC for undocumented students.

Two people were arrested, and scuffles broke out between the police and protesters. One incident resulted in the use of pepper spray after protestors allegedly grabbed an officer's gun belt and removed the magazine clip while she was penned in by students blocking the building's doors.         

Campus police Lt. Marc DeCoulode said Friday morning that the officer used pepper spray on the demonstrators in self-defense, 

Callie Maidhof, a UC Berkeley doctoral student speaking for
"Resistance Social," the group that organized Thursday's protest, recounted the events differently.

The protestors inside Tolman Hall were in the building's lobby at
about 9 p.m. and Maidhof said that she and others noticed police lining up outside the glass doors.

"People started panicking and were trying to leave, but police
officers were pushing the doors shut and wouldn't let us leave," said Maidhof.

About half of the 60 people were able to leave, but she said in the confusion that one person ended up in a chokehold and was screaming "please stop hurting me" before he was arrested on suspicion of obstruction and battery against a police officer.

"They were shouting 'Leave, the building is closed,' but they were standing in front of the building with their sticks," Maidhof said. "I was terrified. If I moved toward them, they would hold up their stick
menacingly."

According to DeCoulode, police never told students that they needed to exit the building.

"There may have been some confusion during the scuffle," DeCoulode
said, adding that people outside Tolman Hall had been throwing rocks, pieces of concrete and chairs at officers and at the doors so officers blocked the building's exit "in part for (the safety of the people inside) and for the officers' safety."

One officer was hit in the head with a large piece of hard rubber
— a traffic cone base — and sought medical treatment at a hospital,
DeCoulode said.

Campus police requested aid from the Alameda County Sheriff's
Office, which coordinated the resources for the request, he said. Officers from nearby UC campuses in San Francisco and Davis also responded, as well as Oakland police officers.

DeCoulode said campus police monitored the area for several hours
after the protestors vacated the building and that they would remain vigilant today.

Last week, the UC Board of Regents met in San Francisco to weigh a
proposal on how to close a budget deficit projected to grow to $2.5 billion over the next four years.

The university is seeking renewed assurance from the state that it
will provide long-term funding to address $1.5 billion of that deficit. The remaining $1 billion in solutions would be provided through expansion of funding streams -- such as corporate sponsorships -- and through implementing academic efficiencies.

If the state does not increase funding it provides to the UC
system, the $1.5 billion would come from a 16 percent annual tuition hike for the next four years, according to the proposal.

Otherwise, the gap would be patched from a combination of tuition
hikes and state funding, depending on how much the Legislature pledges to provide.

Bay City News Contributed to this report.