This is from February 20, 2008, the day after a police raid on the Bekeley tree sit. If you're not familiar with the tree sit, suffice to say that UC Berkeley wants to build on some land next to their stadium, land that they landscaped with oaks in the 1920s. Some people object to this, and basically have the city of Berkeley on their side. The campus is state property but the utility pole the protesters use to get into the trees is on city property and the campus can't do anything about that access point. You get the idea. This will all be decided in the courts but there's a lot of local activists who think a tree sit would make a great resume item.
The day prior (Feb 19th) in an early morning raid the UC police cut a lot of lines used for movement between the trees and generally ramped things up a notch, claiming the trees were mostly empty at this point anyway, over a year into the protest. This gave the protesters some momentum to call a special resupply mission, filling the trees with as many people as possible to make it look active.
Just setting the scene - fences around the trees on the right, and a temporary barricade just under the usual spot where they lift things into the trees. Hmm, looks like they expected this. This pushed a lot of the protesters out into the street. There were lots of complaints about blocking a city sidewalk - not having seen a survey I have no idea if the sidewalk is state or city land, but both police departments have joint jurisdiction over this land in any case. (A lot of the protesters seem to think the UC Police are really security, but they're not, they're regular law enforcement. Guns and everything (Sig Sauer, even)).
This is surprising - shoes! Seriously, tree sitters always have bare feet, I think it's considered safer both for the tree and the climbers once you get used to it. Did they pack the trees with people who had never been there before?
This is new, too. Usually they go to great efforts to cover their faces, desperately afraid of being caught on film. This was much, much more in your face.
And the police just waited.
Close up of a gal answering questions while we waited for things to start.
These are the kinds of lines they use to move around.
Here's the video version.
They were trying hard to act like they were unaffected by the raid.
There was a pretty big buffer between the protesters and the fence, lined by UC police.
Again, the barrier.
Note the security person (in yellow) with the camera. Every faction had video gear and was pointing it at anything that moved.
Great, now the ones in the trees have video cameras, too. Notice this one's covering their face.
It's now time for something to start. The crowd isn't as big as it looks, but it's a decent turnout (couple of dozen?). They call to move to an area that's not under blockade but is under a branch. This means they can proceed although it's not very convenient. It also means they can test if the UC Police will actually arrest people for attaching food to ropes since UC spokespeople said they wouldn't stop resupplies... despite the barriers you see. It's worth noting that this whole time multiple people were on cell phones calling Berkeley City Police hoping they'd come down and chase away the UC Police.
A bit of a tussle as they're getting set. I'm really not sure why...
... but after a little shoving the police backed off to watch and film.
To see the actual resupply including video, go on to page two!
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