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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 33, No. 5 22 April 1970

Berkeley's February Riots: — In Protest about The Chicago Conspiracy Trial

page 8

Berkeley's February Riots:

In Protest about The Chicago Conspiracy Trial

On Monday, 15 February, the day contempt sentences were handed down to the Chicago 10, scattered bands of guerillas ran wild through thirty blocks of Berkeley. They left in their wake 13 injuries, 6 arrests and approximately $500,000 in damages. Berkeley is quiet today but seething with anger. An ad hoc citizen's group has formed to circulate a petition supporting the police force and demanding that all representatives at all levels of government which affect Berkeley and/or the University of California campus, provide ways and means for preventing the proliferation of revolutionary and subversive organisations in the city and on the campus. A letter in today's paper from a self-professed radical says he deplores the melee. The editorial of the student newspaper, The Daily Californian condemns the rampage as being against the true spirit of the revolution: a revolutionary must get the people on his side. The Berkeley city paper is calling for permanent helicopter patrols over the city.

As I write this I can hear sirens (Fire, police or ambulance?) whining through the downtown area. Berkeley can take a lot but this, the worst riot ever in the city in terms of the damage caused, coming two nights after the break up of a city council meeting, and one day after the bombings of both the San Francisco and the Berkeley police stations, has resulted in a tense polarisation of opinion. The radicals are veering more to the Weathermen style of protest. The property owners are demanding more police control and no permits for demonstrations.

The radicals here have felt impotent and frustrated since the People's Park War (14 May-20 June, 1968). Here the cause was just, the demonstrations orderly, the city sympathetic. It was the cops who "overreacted", blinding Alan Blanchard and killing James Rector. Between June and February the campus has been quiet and the rallies drawing small groups. The anti-tuition campaign has been weakened by the in-fighting among its leaders.

The Chicago contempt sentences seemed to unleash pent up frustration. The rally in Provo Park to try the U.S. government by a people's jury served to gather everyone together but no one wanted to listen to speeches. A voice shouted "Let's take Shattuck" and the crowd boiled into the streets to begin three hours of destruction and revenge.

W. Disney

W. Disney

I was walking to the demonstration from the campus when this disorderly hysterical group smashed its way past me yelling "Kill the pigs!" and "Take the Park!". I kept asking if they had come from Provo Park. The only answer I got was from a guy who screamed "Join in, Chick!" and then leapt in front of me to smash a telephone kiosk with his steel rod. I was covered in glass. As I picked my way through the wreckage, trying to run before the cops arrived and tear gas and perhaps birdshot used, a woman owner of a small craft shop that now had no windows left and very few clothes, boxes or candles, asked me if I'd like to shelter inside. I preferred to get home as quickly as possible. After experiencing, in the People's Park fights, what it's like to be on the streets when the cops, scared and taunted, start clubbing anyone in sight, I knew I'd better get the hell out of it. It was six-seven blocks to home. On the way I met some people who hailed me as another who was going back to Shattuck as "Telegraph Avenue is completed". Shattuck, the main commercial street, was deserted, its banks, department stores, and offices spewing paper, drapery and merchandise all over the pavements. Glass was ankle deep in parts. Some shop owners stood in front of their stores with sticks and boards in hand. One desperate jeweller held a gun which he pointed at anyone who walked by.

It took ages to get home through the glass, mobs and driving rain. Along the way I saw only a few police cars. During the three hours the police acted with uncharacteristic restraint. No tear gas was used, no guns drawn, few clubs were wielded. On most streets the cops arrived in sufficient numbers to be a threat and the mob retreated. One cop who was alone in the midst of the violence, just across the road from where I was standing, was beaten and clubbed with his own billy stick into a bloody pulp.

At home we listened to the radio reports of the wrecking of a huge supermarket and a battle of raiders against cashiers and customers. The weapons used were cans, boxes, bricks, glass and large ice cubes.

The next day I took a walk round Berkeley to see what damage had been done. On Shattuck all businesses were open, most, however, were shored up with wood while waiting for the glass replacement companies to finish mending the banks. The attack on Shattuck had been fairly systematic—it was the banks, each and every one of them, the brokers, realtors, insurance companies, car dealers and stores for the wealthy that had been wrecked. But on Bancroft, leading to Telegraph Avenue from Shattuck, the scene was more desolate, more senseless. A small secondhand shop was boarded over. Black lettering on the boards read "We Quit. Closing Sale Now. Established 1945". On the Telegraph/Bancroft corner, where I had been standing, all the shop fronts were ruins. A Wells Fargo bank there had had all its furniture slashed, desks upturned, contents spilled. On Telegraph some of the boarded up windows had already been painted on; their trees, suns, flowers were totally incongruous. Pencilled onto a board leaning against a large dress shop was "Make the next plank of wood into a hippie's coffin". Another clothes shop had a large notice pasted over a hole "Brothers and Sisters, don't lean on this window: it's in danger of collapsing". Under this in huge letters, "Peace".

That riot was a wet dream for the ruling classes. There was no concrete political purpose to the demonstration, no distinction as to who should have been attacked. Both leaders and participants were bankrupt of ideals. The rampage was a victory for Reagan and a defeat for the people.

Janice Marriott