According to Pitt spokesperson Joe Miksch, the students were charged with aggravated assault, resisting arrest and trespassing after they “attempted to enter Litchfield Towers lobby after being asked by university police to not do so.”
Friday, November 18, 2016
Two arrested during student-debt protest at University of Pittsburgh
According to Pitt spokesperson Joe Miksch, the students were charged with aggravated assault, resisting arrest and trespassing after they “attempted to enter Litchfield Towers lobby after being asked by university police to not do so.”
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I saw videos of this protest on Facebook but was given no context so I had no idea what was actually going on until now. It is so outrageous that this happened and the final quote by Angela Ryu (I believe I first saw it on Facebook) is wildly accurate. Though there is the idea that certain spaces need to be maintained by being closed off at certain times, I don’t understand the layout of the University of Pittsburgh’s campus so I do not know if the place the protesters were beaten and forced out of – Litchfield Tower’s Tower B lobby – was actually a space that was open to students at the time. I also hope that many CMU students participated; though I understand tuition prices are problems for everyone, Carnegie Mellon University has some of the highest tuition rates (and minimal financial aid funding) in the nation. Harvard, my sister’s alma mater, not only charged lower tuition, It gave out massive amounts of financial aid. Last semester, one of my professors sat down and randomly asked the question “why do you think CMU alumni don’t donate back to the school?” Should more CMU alumni donate, CMU would have more funding to maintain the university and could potentially lower tuition. The money has to come from somewhere, and CMU alumni clearly did not enjoy their time at the university enough to donate, unlike Harvard alumni. There is such a huge stress culture here on campus and it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. Once, a friend of mine and I walked by one of the petting zoos that has been appearing more frequently on the Cut. He looked over at it and told me that he was disgusted by the increase in petting zoos. When I asked why, he told me that they don’t solve the problem of stress, they just deter it slightly. The stress problem on campus cannot be fixed through a few stress-lowering campaigns. It is a deeper issue than that.
I find the phrase, “when the protest turned violent,” frustrating. The protest didn’t turn violent, two people turned violent. The vast majority of people protesting were peaceful. They did bring their protest into a dorm, which isn’t particularly advised (it isn’t a “traditional public forum” space,) but being annoying or ill-advised isn’t the same as violent. [Sidenote: Pitt is a public campus - unless they were breaking quiet hours, I wonder what reasoning the police gave for forcing them out of a dorm.]
I’ve seen the “protest turned violent” phrase a few times over the last several days and I’m anxious that it’s being used to undermine the legitimacy of peaceful protests and protesters and undermine their very valid message. Certainly violent protest should be condemned and reported, by both protesters and the media, but I hope journalists are careful not to conflate rogue protesters with the majority that are handling themselves appropriately.
Wow what a really violent protest. I'm really glad that the police prevent the students and staff members from invading a space they weren't allowed into.
Sorry, this just in, students and faculty members try to enter school building, get arrested by police. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired about these things. Yes, these people got arrested, but I hope to god they're not being charged because then we would have a real problem. After reading this article, I think that we as a community need to redefine what a violent protest is. I am constantly saddened and disgusted by the way that officers of the law jump to use force in these kinds of situations. These are the same people who went through months of training, and they don't have the self control to not shove some college kids trying to enter their own academic building? This was not a violent protest.
I don’t want to get into the politics of all of this because I don’t want to start emotional comments to this post but I am curious about how forceful the police were when trying to get people out of the building. From this article it seemed to be really forceful and almost abusive but could it be that the crowd was forcing the officers to be more forceful to get people away? I am not a fan of these types of situations because emotions and adrenaline starts running and things can go south like these individuals that were arrested. They were speaking their minds and protesting because they could but did things go too far? Should they have tried to force themselves past the police or not go into that building? Does having more people in the protest increase the group's drive to make a difference right then and there?
Ok, I fully admit that my view is biased in this scenario considering I am a student and so many of my peers have student loans they will be paying for most of their lifetime. This protest probably could have been handled better by both the students and the police. However, this quote: “Pitt Police then entered the lobby from both sides to evict the protesters from the lobby, pushing and grabbing protesters to herd the demonstrators out” shows where the catalyst of the conflict is. The police are trained professionals with experience in crowd control. There was no reason to begin to get physical with the students. The protestors were riled up, of course they’re going to push back if anyone is shoving them out of their building of learning. Honestly I think this issue was compounded because of poor police control. It’s disappointing that students had to be arrested for protesting the unjust American higher education system.
It goes without saying that the most respectable civil rights figures were those that accomplished their ends without the need for violence, MLK and Gandhi understood that being above reproach and above doubt is a more potent tool than any amount of arms, respect goes farther than bullets. I am not sure where I fall on this issue, from what the article described, I think that everyone involved was a little bit of an asshole. I cannot respect the message or the person as soon as they start being an asshole. Outside of a few cases the police don’t care about suppressing any group or taking a political stance, they just want everything to be quite and orderly. Generally the police don’t care what you are saying as long as you arnt upsetting people. That being said, at certain times, people need to be upset. They need to be upset by what you are saying, not how you are saying it. If the police arrest me because I lead a mod in favor of chocolate intent on burning down the vanilla factory, its not because they hate chocolate, its because I was being an asshole.
I saw a video of the violent confrontation with police the night of the protest and was very upset. I don’t think you *need* much context to be angry about the premise of university police violently (yes, violently) arresting students on campus, when there was no pressing danger involved with their actions.
Based on prior comments I think 2 important points need to be made:
First, @ Chris Norville’s comment – the Pittsburgh University Police, as part of their larger Pittsburgh union, endorsed President Trump. I think the connection between the aggressive abatement of an Anti-Trump (etc) protest by police which are to some degree Pro-Trump requires little elaboration. The argument that the police only care about things being “quiet and orderly” is extremely ignorant to the systemic oppression of minorities by the American policing system. This is much larger than the individual motivations of officers. Quotas and training (and ingrained racism) require even the most well-meaning officers to harass people based on their identity.
Secondly, @ Lia Jennings’ comment – while this is certainly a complex issue, I’m not sure a stance of strong skepticism is appropriate. While I cannot speak with complete authority (because I wasn’t there), the mentality that violent protest *necessitates* violent policing is part of the fundamental problem with policing in our country. As other commenters have mentioned, if 1-2 protesters become violent, does that warrant police to act violently towards everyone there? This protest turned violent when the police arrived. As you suggested, police presence activated flight-or-fight instincts in the students. Even from the limited video footage available, you can tell that many of the students were made very frightened and angry by the police. The tactics used by the police did anything but de-escalate the situation. The policing priorities were not safety and order, but to shut down the protest in an aggressive manner. This included physical threats (something I’m appalled would be used on a college campus against students who were not acting violently) and undercover and uniformed officers screaming confusing orders and terrorizing the students even once outside the building.
Yes, well, when you trespass on Private Property and are asked to leave by the authority of said property, I'm unsure what you expect to occur besides arrests when you don't leave. There is no excuse for assaulting a law enforcement officer, no matter how upset you are. You won't win so I'm not sure why you'd bother fighting it. I actually had to speed walk ahead of the protest because they started towards me when I was at The Bagel Factory and I didn't want to get sucked in. It was nice to see that the City of Pittsburgh Police were very respectful and had motorcycle cops speeding ahead to close off the roads for the protest. They were kindly preventing motor vehicle incidents and allowing the protest to disrupt traffic and proceed down roads when they didn't have to. They could have easily shut down the entire thing before it started but show that they believe in the peaceful protest. It becomes a different issue when you are on private property.
While i do not agree with the behavior of the protesters in regards to the police, who were likely trying to prevent anything drastic from occurring, I think the march and the ideas it was based on are extremely important. I saw this protest on my way back to the Residence on Fifth, and i also saw the police clearing the streets ahead of the march. I think in the light of the election, and other current societal issues, the police respected the rights of the protesters to peacefully march, and i think that is a key point that we should really focus on here. not to say that we shouldn't focus on the actual reasons for the protest, however things could have definitely gotten out of hand if the march was handled less respectfully by the police.
I have seen some of the cell phone videos of this incident floating around social media, but hadn't yet discovered an explanation like this one that put them into context. It infuriates me when police break up otherwise peaceful protests by violent means. In the videos I have seen you can see the girl that pushes back, escalating the situation. While I am generally against those who advocate for immediate physical resistance to police orders, it is clear that the officers involved weren't really worried about looking for an excuse. Batons out they were shoving, throwing, and beating college students as they were forced from the building. A building which at least some of them likely live in. Don't get me wrong. I understand why the police were intent on securing this building, and I get why they would try to remove the protesters from it, but there are other ways to deal with a group of incensed, yet peaceful, protesters than to respond with violence. I sincerely hope that each and every one of the officers involved with this altercation is reprimanded and forced to attend training in non violent compliance tactics.
I'm mixed about this reaction. First of all, I totally support those who went out and protested, and I think it's great to utilize your constitutional rights to stand up for what you believe in. The detaining of a few protestors here is in a grey area for me--on one hand, they have the right to enter the building as many were Pitt students, but on the other hand it is technically private property, and the police were doing what they could to prevent it from getting out of hand--which I understand, since a large protest march entering the lobby of a dorm would undoubtably be chaotic. What I don't like about this article is how it states that the protests got violent--yes, a few people tried to fight back, but that doesn't make it a violent protest, there was just some resistance to the protest being broken up. In total, while the halting of the protest is disappointing, I can see where the police involved are coming from, and I understand that they were trying to prevent chaos or a lack of safety.
So I might just have misread the article, but someone was detained because they wanted to use speakers in an event unrelated to the protest, and someone else was detained because after being pushed over by a police officer, she tried to push them back? Okay....
I shared the video of this on Facebook, I can't remember who originally posted it, but I was reading through a lot of the comments. A lot of them read things like "This was private property, they don't have a right to protest there." and "They had it coming." The video is way more "graphic" than this article makes it seem, the police were shoving people out the door and screaming "Get out! Get out!" They were not calmly guiding the people out of Litchfield towers. People were on the ground and running. I don't agree with violent protest, I think it sort of defeats the purpose of why we are protesting, so I don't like that people were attempting to incite violence. But the police need to respond in an equal and reactive way. If people were just yelling things, there is really no reason to throw them to the ground or to shove them out of a building while screaming "GET OUT!" like there's a bomb or something. I think the police in this country are out of control with power complexes like you've never seen.
Yikes, well this is certainly unfortunate. While I'm al for peaceful protest, you are certainly not going to win by disregarding police orders. It doesn't matter if you are right, you likely are going to get shoved to the ground and arrested, as was the case here. I'm not quite sure what trying to enter Litchfield Tower really gained the protesters, when the police were perfectly fine letting them demonstrate outside on the street. I also question the usage of signs that say "Our grandparents killed fascists." It just seems hypocritical to advocate violence against somebody, when one of the problems you have with that person is that they advocate violent imagery.
On a more cynical note, I guess I fundamentally don't get what protests like this accomplish. In this collegiate urban environment, all these protests are going into an echo chamber of people that already agree with you. I just find it hard to believe that protests like this one actually reach the ears of Trump supporters, least of all change their opinions on any issues.
I have also seen the video of this event on Facebook and I think this article really downplayed the force used by the police. I think this situation is kind of tricky, because well, yes, you are not supposed to protest on private property, dorms are collectively owned and paid for by the tuition of these very students. I think that police in this city and across this country are becoming more dangerously violent and powerful as they realise their actions don’t have real consequences.
But more than this article I wanted to address something Ben said in the comment above this: he says he doesn’t understand what the point of these protests in this setting are, and that he finds it hard to believe they actually do something. Well yes, we are in an urban collegiate setting and there are a lot of like minded people, one of the points of these protests can be to remind those people that they are not alone and that together we are stronger and louder than they ever dreamed. Furthermore, in the few demonstrations I have participated here we have gotten some opposition from people witnessing the protest and even if there are not that many, if you can work to change the minds of those few people, or just make them think, that is progress. Progress does not have to be huge to be important.
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