OneAngryAlly: Trouble at Occupy Berkeley Protests - I Know, Right?

The Occupy movement continues to grow and spread, and a logical place to set up shop is Berkeley, California, historically a hotbed of political activity. Well, police of that fair city barely gave it a day before clashing with protestors on the iconic campus - 39 demonstrators were arrested yesterday, on that first day.

Administration officials responded to the protesters by agreeing to let demonstrators stay on school property, but forbid them from erecting any sort of shelter or using sleeping bags, a move which would keep the students from starting an encampment like the ones in hundreds of cities across the world aligned to the Occupy movement. In a vote from Occupy Cal organizers early in the day, however, protesters decided to pitch tents on school property, despite those orders from the administration to refrain from doing so.

Video from throughout the course of events show police attacking protesters with batons, bluntly striking them in their abdomens and elsewhere. Some footage has also surfaced in which police are clearly seen striking protesters, unprovoked, from behind.
“We were linked arms, peacefully, when they were stabbing and beating people as hard as they could, it hurt really bad when they got me in the stomach,” Ashley Pinkerton, a student at UC Berkeley, tells Daily Cal after being beat by the police.

Here's the video; you decide.



As one student summed up in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle: "This just shows us how afraid they are of the Occupy movement."