Free Republic

A Big Apple anti-Israel group blasted out a how-to guide to seizing buildings as protests rocked universities in Manhattan.Days after cops arrested over 100 Columbia University students and cleared a large anti-Israel encampment at its upper Manhattan campus, The Peoples Park radicals posted “The Do-It-Yourself Occupation Guide” on its Instagram account, which has 2,300 followers.

Merchants and nearby residents are hoping a new police foot patrol on Telegraph Avenue and at People's Park will reduce the numbers of transients and their aggressive dogs that drive other people away. The patrols started April 30. On day two, they arrested a South Carolina murder suspect who was doing push-ups in People's Park. Police said they initially questioned the man because of his shopping cart, which is illegal to possess. After running his name through a database, he was arrested on a no bail warrant. The patrols, two teams of two from UC Berkeley and the city of...

The University's recent bulldozer "maintenance" in the Park is problematic in several ways. First, it is a violation of trust and respect. The University snuck into the Park in the early hours with no notice to the community and long time Park volunteers. The Pergola, or trellis in the West End, which UC rather mysteriously decapitated, was designed and agreed upon during almost a year of meetings with University architects and the volunteers who built it. And the information that the University is providing for their recent attack is misleading, if not outright falsehood. I'll eat my hat if the...

Bulldozers ploughed through the west end of People’s Park today turning decades of community garden into rubble. Dozens of police watched as crews tossed mountains of healthy plants and a community-built arbor into dumpsters, leaving behind stripped earth. A young student who claimed to be volunteering as a police assistant handed out university fliers which stated, “In response to park users and neighbor concerns, we are doing maintenance work to address the rat infestation and safety issues in People’s Park.” A UC press release described the activity as "an effort to provide students and the broader community with safer, more...

<p>First she was buoyantly up in a "dangerous" People's Park tree protesting "Everything," but now she's at Highland Hospital with a broken back, ending an eight-day protest which was a protest-in-progress.</p> <p>Her last fall from the tree was her second. She fell in her second day in the tree and was caught in the arms of a friend before she hit the ground. "Moon Shadow," who was first up, last Monday, reportedly took a plunge when—out on a limb—he helped attach a protest banner.</p>

UC police have charged a man who has been sitting in a tree in People's Park for the last three months with attempted murder. Matthew Dodt, 54, was arrested around 3:15 am after a six-hour standoff, according to Lt. Mark Decoulode of the UC Berkeley police department. Dodt allegedly stabbed a man who had climbed up into the tree for a conversation, said Lt. Decoulode. Dodt allegedly aimed for the man's neck, but the man reached his hand up to his neck, deflecting the blow. The knife sliced the victim's hand. He was treated at a local hospital and released....

Berkeley’s latest tree-sit ended almost before it began when the lone remaining branch-percher descended to earth Tuesday morning, followed by two acacias a few hours later. Campus community relations director Irene Hegarty said that only one of the two tree-sitters who took to the branches was still aloft when community members talked him down. “He walked away, though he was cited and released for trespassing by university police a couple of blocks away,” she said. Arborists made short work of the trees, leaving five or six five-foot logs and a pile of wood chips for use at the park. “They...

BERKELEY, California: The hundreds who massed at the University of California campus here on election night responded to Barack Obama's victory by heading off on a route that has been for a generation the sacred way for the activist left: out the campus gates, through Sproul Plaza, and down Telegraph Avenue toward People's Park. By the time they arrived at the intersection of Telegraph and Durant avenues, where a tie-dye vendor occupies one corner, it became clear they did not come to challenge the system now preparing to consecrate a new regime in Washington. At one point, a man scaled...

People's Park is a social puzzle that has defied nearly 40 years of attempts by UC Berkeley to solve it, largely because the university and many neighbors see it as a problem but the park's most loyal users treasure it as one of the city's most vibrant open spaces. Now the university as owner of the land is trying a new approach, using a consulting firm to patiently confer with park lovers and shunners in hopes of reaching a consensus on the park's future. The work is as much therapy as planning -- that's how deep the divisions run over...

The People's Park Community Advisory Board is to meet Dec. 4 to discuss how to make the park safer and more accessible to a wider range of users, including a proposal from the city and UC police to remove a dirt mound in the northwest corner of the park. "There's a prevailing feeling that we want the park to be more widely used by the community," board member Joseph Halperin said. "There's no effort to exclude anybody or to tell anyone they can't use it."