About 50 #Texas DPS State Troopers were sent out in response to a peaceful attempt to march and occupy a Plaza at UT #Austin today. Reportedly three arrests according to those on scene.
@oconnell
I'm not convinced that the adjective peaceful can appropriately be used to describe the word occupy.
Occupy: take control of (a place, especially a country) by military conquest or settlement:
"the region was occupied by Britain during World War I"
enter, take control of, and stay in (a building) illegally and often forcibly, especially as a form of protest:
"the workers occupied the factory"
However, just be watching the video and imagining I were (visibly) a Jew, I would not feel save walking through that dense crowd.
Many people are borrowing a lot of money to go to university. These mass-protest on (the private private grounds of the) campus make any kind of lecture, leave a lone learning, very hard, if not impossible.
...have the right to protest, that protest should be limited to public grounds. Any property owner has the right to clear his grounds of people not behaving in a constructive way.
OFC #1A, but not everywhere, neither online (->#X/#Twitter), nor in RL. According to many news reports, the students will not clear the grounds voluntarily, so the police are necessary to remove them from the premises.
@oconnell@HistoPol
I've only been to maybe four dozen protests when arrests were made and in all of them there were people in the public that caused escalation so I think that the type of protests makes a huge difference.
Most of mine were for either climate, environment, or equal justice. If there were plans for some volunteers to be arrested than we took steps to ensure it was done safely.
@oconnell@HistoPol
In this example, you said that a reporter got arrested. Well, they put themselves in the middle of a melee so that had to happen in order to try to keep people safe. The right to protest and document it doesn't give anyone the right to put others at risk.
@oconnell@HistoPol
Fair enough, I assume that the police were necessary to end the trespassing which made those youth start yelling at them saying get off their campus.
I'll add this. Of all of the campuses I've ever been on, whether as professor or student, I considered myself a guest. So maybe that might explain our different perspective.
If you are a student or a professor, you are actually working at these premises. I'd not say that you are not a guest, this is your work place, However, if you do not behave within good faith of your (education or work) contract, the employer has the right to remove you with the help of the police.
Fair and square.
I see no reason why these protests couldn't take place on the public streets and squares sourrounding the campuses--without blocking access for others.
@HistoPol@oconnell
We learned long ago to designate a location on campus for first amendment protected demonstrations so that safety and rights of all the staff and students could be protected from those among the population that only care about themselves.
Governor Greg Abbott is bragging about the arrests taking place at UT #Austin campus right now. This is not an antisemitic protest and is in fact supported by Jewish organizations. #Palestine
Per National Lawyers Guild, there are as many as 50 arrests today at the UT #Austin campus, at the protest in support of #Palestine. Arrests apparently still ongoing. #activism
Statements on today's #police violence against peaceful protesters at the UT #Austin campus. Ryan Alter is on Austin City Council. Jeremy Suri is Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and married to Austin City Council member Alison Alter.
Tony Plohetaki, Investigative reporter for KVUE and the #Austin American Statesman on the extremely unusual arrest of a journalist, very unusual in this city. #journalism#Palestine#media#Texas
UT #Austin faculty are reportedly planning to walk out tomorrow in response to the brutal #police violence on campus today against activists who support #Palestine.
This is an expansion of an already planned rally in solidarity with faculty who lost their jobs in an anti-#DEI backlash.
National Lawyers Guild members and other legal volunteers have been working all day to secure the release of the arrestees from UT #Austin today. Over 50 arrests total. The first two just got released from Travis County Jail.
It's typical at least in #Austin for #police to dump arrestees out of jail in the middle of the night when they expect them to have little support. That's one reason why jail support is so important especially after so many arrests.
At least in Austin, police don't usually dump people in the middle of nowhere after releasing them.
Per #Austin Chronicle reporter Austin Sanders, the DIstrict Attorney has been dropping all charges against the dozens of protesters arrested yesterday on the #UTAustin campus as their cases come before her.
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