Umass Held A Rally Against Police Brutality Today

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inthefacezoo blarneychaos

 

 

So I guess about 100 people showed up for rally against police brutality today at Umass.  My question is whether the girl holding the sign knew she was going to squish “want” in the top line like that or whether she just ran out of room midway.   Anyway still lots of people talking about the Blarney Blowout.   I already said my peace over the weekend.   For the most part I think the Umass administration are morons.   That doesn’t excuse idiots who throw shit at the cops or didn’t leave when asked, but their general lack of respect for the vast majority of students and Swat team tactics only served to inflame the situation as opposed to diffuse it.  So in my opinion lots of what happened rests squarely on the administrations shoulders.  If they weren’t such hard asses and worked with the students instead of against them lots of this could have been avoided.

Another fact that has come out after the arrests is that 60% of the students arrested weren’t even Umass students to begin with.  Again something if I was the Chancellor of the School I’d probably point out rather than blame it all on my own constituency.  Also something good to know so you can prepare for next year.

Anyway this letter written by a student has been making the rounds:

As many have seen broadcasted across a number of social networking platforms and news programming, the events and actions that took place dubbed as ‘Blarney Blowout’ this past Saturday can undoubtedly be recognized as those that will go down in history. What was expected to be a fun and celebratory day for all turned into a massive showcasing of police brutality, abuse of power, and tarnished records. Students looking to have an enjoyable weekend of nice weather and post midterms turned aggressive when over 70 students were arrested and hundreds of others suffer from wounds as a result of rubber bullets, tear-gas, pepper spray, and physical force.

The media everywhere is depicting the event as wild and unruly, but in fact it wasn’t until the squads showed up that things got out of hand. I personally watched from above, as several of my close friends, trying to diffuse the situation and defend themselves and their property, were verbally and physically assaulted by men in SWAT suits. Looking at the videos published on news sources all over the web, the media seems to focus too much on the student body and their disrespect for the University, and less about the fear and discomfort of the students.

 

Read The Rest At Her Campus