Occupy the Farm: Police Lock Gates, Actually Allowing Occupiers to Continue Occupying
Categories: Occupy Bay Area
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| Kate Conger |
| Home Sweet Home |
According to Occupy the Farm, police came in around noon yesterday and chained up the fences around the 10-acre site, which is owned by UC Berkeley. That means protesters can leave (which we're guessing they don't intend to do), but they can't come back if they do.
Think of it as a no-reentry policy for those who are already occupying the site.
Until then, protesters, who entered the site on Earth Day to claim it as a community farm, say they were able to come and go as they please; now they're locked inside the site, which the university uses for research. Isn't that the exact opposite of evicting protesters?
Here's what Occupy the Farm has to say about that:
This represents the latest in a series of measures taken by the UC Administration to force the Farmers off of this piece of public farmland. To date, the UCPD has cut off all water to the Gill Tract, incapacitated the fire hydrant on the land, placed concrete barriers around the land preventing vehicular access, and locked all entrances shut. Farmers note that these actions threaten more than just their plants: that in this dry, windy weather, which poses a high fire-risk, there are no working fire hydrants on the land, and significantly restricted access points for firefighters and exits for people on the landIn any event, it does make things a bit trickier for protesters, who now can't leave to get supplies they need. That's where you come in. Occupiers are asking their supporters to come over to the site and pass supplies to them through the locked gates, including water for the crops, duct tape, and gallon jugs.
Bring your sleeping bags, too, so you can camp outside the chained-up fence and support those trapped on the other side.
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