A frequent visitor of People’s Park was a victim of an assault in the park Thursday afternoon, according to police.
At around 3:35 p.m., the victim — a 53-year-old male who is not affiliated with UC Berkeley — was punched before leaving the park at the corner of Bowditch and Haste streets, according to UCPD spokesperson Lt. Eric Tejada.
When UCPD responded to the scene at approximately 3:45 p.m., the suspect had already fled on foot, according to Tejada.
Tejada said in an email that the victim was taken to Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and was treated for a few minor cuts. He was released from the hospital shortly after because he wanted to retrieve his belongings from the park.
Tejada said in an email that in 2011, UCPD responded to 1,358 incidents at People’s Park, which he estimated translates into approximately 26 calls every week.
“This just shows that the park requires a good deal of our time and attention,” Tejada said in the email.
UCPD is still searching for the suspect in Thursday’s assault, according to Tejada. He added that the victim did not provide information regarding the reason for the altercation.
In 2011, UCPD was called 29 times for battery-related calls, 37 times for disturbance calls and four times for calls relating to assault with a deadly weapon in the park, according to Tejada.
In December, the campus trimmed heavy vegetation surrounding People’s Park to improve its visibility in hopes of improving safety for both students and the community, said Christine Shaff, communications manager for the campus facilities services department.
Although this was aimed at improving safety, the project’s main focus was to mitigate the growing rat population, Shaff added.
Shaff said the campus is currently making more improvements to People’s Park by installing more lights. She said these lights will be placed in strategic locations to illuminate dark areas of the park so “that there is no place for people to hide” from patrol vehicles or investigating officers.
The lights are scheduled to be installed by the end of the semester, she said.
Jonathan Tam covers crime.
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Correction: Amy Delatorre fell out of the tree on September 6, 2011.
The
writer on this story, Jonathan Tam, needs to do more investigation rather than
accept the word of the police regarding the Park. UC Berkeley Lt. Tejada is a
liar and a criminal.
#1 The alleged “victim” in this story is
never identified so for all anybody knows the story was made up. Moreover the
circumstances of this alleged assault are not described in detail as the
“victim” did not want to tell anyone the reason he was allegedly assaulted. For
Tejada to say “This just shows that the park requires a good deal of our time and
attention,” is disingenuous. Perhaps the alleged “victim” started the fight.
#2 There are few people
who want the police in the Park given their history of beating up its
occupants, harassing people in the Park and causing serious injuries of the
Park’s tree sitters such as Amy Delatorre. Delatorred was one of three tree
sitters in the Park whose back was seriously injured on or about October 1, 2011 in a fall as a result police
officers under Tejada’s command who shined their flashlights into Delatorre’s eyes
causing her to fall. Later these same police officers from this same department
went to the hospital where Amy was taken and harass her about her companions in
the tree while she is being examined by a physician and extreme pain.
Tejada is guilty as a
co-conspirator in along with the police officers who shined those flashlights
and harassed Delatorre at the hospital. He, the University and the police
officers are equally culpable for the violation of Delatorre civil rights. They
have yet to be held accountable for their conduct.
The police are NOT humanitarians.
They have become well known tormenters of people in the Park.
#3 The police orchestrated the massacre of the
West end of the park on December 28, 2011 bulldozing the trees, cutting The
Pergola in half, destroying the Council Grove, uprooting plants, flowers and
rare vegetation that had been in the Park since its start in 1969. While there
were some rats in the Park, the only rats who did thousands of dollars of
damage to the Park are the ones in uniform, the University of California at Berkeley Police
Department.
#4 Christine Shaff,
communications manager for the campus facilities services department, is also
disingenuous about the University’s concern for the “
safety [of] students and the community…” as a rationale for the massacre of the
Park, as she is part of the University machine who has tried to make Peoples Park a parking lot
from its inception.
The problem with the University
and this news report is it does not ring true in light of the history of the
University’s actions, including the actions of the University’s police
department, against the Park and the people who go there.
Please seek professional help.
Want people to take Berkeley more seriously as a school with top level academics? Then clean up its surroundings. You’ll find that very few other centers of academia maintain their surroundings crappily to maintain a “tradition” or “atmosphere.” After all, colleges are supposed to be progressive (which means that Berkeley should move AWAY from its reputation as the school with all the crazies, that was the past). Keep moving forward, just like every other normal institution.
Good thinking LAWLS…Alameda County needs and seeds a plethora of ” progressive repressive NORMAL INSTITUTIONALS” just like you. Maybe you can help out with cooperative rodent control on f ..rat row…like a worthy member.
I disagree with a lot of things LAWLS may say, but unlike you, he can at least write a coherent post. All you’re doing is babbling here.