ALBANY, Calif. — Members of Occupy the Farm broke into UC-owned research land in Albany Saturday morning in order to weed and harvest crops they planted during their three-week occupation of the land that ended in May.
The approximately 50 activists on hand at the land known as the Gill Tract were spurred to action by a scheduled harvest by the city of Albany to which attendance was limited.
Although the city’s event was canceled, activists nevertheless convened at the Gill Tract Saturday in order to weed and harvest, according to Occupy the Farm spokesperson Anya Kamenskaya.
At 9:40 a.m., the lock to the tract’s west gate was cut, and the activists immediately went into the field near the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Marin Way and began tending the crops.
“This is a fantastic return to the farm,” said UC Berkeley graduate student Ian Saxton. “It’s a victory in the sense that we planted some crops and now we’re picking them.”
Although officers were on hand to observe and announced that protesters were trespassing and could be subject to citation and arrest, UCPD declined to issue an official statement as to how they plan to respond to Saturday’s break-in.
“They have no regard for property rights, no regard for the research being done there, no regard for community-based democratic process,” said UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof. “It’s hard to understand their petulance about not being invited to a weeding party when they turned down an invitation (in May) to be part of the process.”
Mogulof said the campus will not decide whether or not to seek legal action against those who entered the tract Saturday until the activists’ actions are assessed.
Shortly after the activists entered the Gill Tract, campus associate adjunct professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology Frank Harmon, who planted corn on the land in order to study its behavior, arrived to check on his crops.
Although he said his crops looked fine, Harmon said he had no intention of speaking with Occupy the Farm about what he is doing.
“They’re not here legitimately, so there’s no reason for me to talk to them,” Harmon said. “We already went through this, so it’s clear what they think and what we’re doing here.”
The activists left the tract without incident around 1 p.m. after deciding to pickle and stew the vegetables they harvested and then distributing the prepared food to neighborhood organizations including Phat Beets Produce, Food Not Bombs, People’s Grocery and Albany High School.
In a press release issued Saturday morning, farm organizers said they also plan to attend Monday’s Albany City Council meeting, which will address the future of the development project on a portion of the land not used by campus researchers.
Christopher Yee is an assistant news editor.
News editor Adelyn Baxter contributed to this report.
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I can’t believe the U.C. police just stood by and watched while these self-righteous children cut the lock and marched into the field. What if an equally ideologically certain group of conservative students “occupied” some of the more leftist professors offices in order to protest the dangers of communism? Their offices are, after all, public property and one could certainly argue that better use could be made of the space they use. What would the University have done then? Would it have praised the value of a market based approach to social problems and suggested that the occupiers and the professors share the office space? Of course not!
Thank you Albany for causing more trouble.
The University foolishly dropped the lawsuit
against these clowns so what did it expect. Anarchists should not be placated
or negotiated with. Send in THE BLUE to evacuate the loons and take all legal
action against them to PUNISH them for their crimes of trespassing and
vandalizing private property. Why is that so difficult for the University of
California, Berkeley. Stop capitulating to irrational leftist ideology
“broke into”… Of course there will be no consequences for these criminals. It’s the Berkeley way. By all means necessary
UC already dropped it’s previous suit… so what exactly was your point?
No punishment for Libs by Libs. Get the point now?
Albany actually…
Berkeley actually. The land is Cal Berkeley land, and the officers were UCPD. Both would be referred to as Berkeley.
tear gas these fools
such force cannot be legally applied simply for the sake of crowd control.
it would do wonders for your stated positions if you were to learn something about the law before opining,
just sayin’!
SOME ONE selectively loves the constitution, lol.
There’s no constitutional right to trespass or break into other people’s property.
Explain the constitutional issue related to tear gassing trespassers.
Advocating a violent response to peaceful civil disobedience is a repressive Statist attitude = Fascism supporter!
Crawl back into your welfare red state cocoon current (non-student)!
Can you actually respond without resorting to silly rhetoric?
Look up fascism, and try to use it correctly in the future.