Seven University of California students were arrested and dozens of others suffered bruises and abrasions following a police crackdown on an attempted encampment at a local plaza on Wednesday.
“We had the tents set up for about a half an hour when the police decided they wanted to shut down the camp,” student protester Eric Uribe recalled in an interview with RT. “What the students did is they set up a human wall around the tents. Soon after that, the police approached with full force in riot gear, with batons. We had no intention to move, but they jabbed some of us repeatedly in the stomach, pulling people onto the floor and arresting them.”
Hundreds of protesters had gathered at the town’s Sproul Plaza to protest against tuition fee increases and public education funding cuts.
Following the line of Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Oakland, they planned on setting up an encampment.
While the police had allowed them to use the Plaza as a gathering spot at any time, camping out was strictly prohibited.
University officials addressed the crowd offering a compromise, but were given a negative response. After that the police pushed their way through the human chain and took the tents down by force, prompting a reaction from the crowd.