Cries of ‘Hey ho, hey ho! Police brutality has to go!’ could be heard from the steps of Hendricks Chapel on Wednesday afternoon as about 50 students, faculty and Syracuse residents rallied together to protest against police brutality.

The demonstration was organized by three graduate students and the Syracuse Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition in response to a recent event at the University of California-Davis. Police officers used pepper spray at close range against a group of students during a peaceful Occupy UC Davis protest, sparking a national conversation about the police’s interaction with the Occupy movement.

Melissa Welshans, a doctoral candidate and one of the event’s organizers, said that this event was also a way for her to understand the process of holding a legal organized protest at Syracuse University.

‘The only way to figure out how the system works is to work within the system. And if it doesn’t work out, then you know it needs to change,’ Welshans said before the demonstration.

So to comply with SU’s regulations, Welshans made sure the Quad was reserved and spoke to Tiffany Steinwert, the dean of Hendricks Chapel, to get permission to rally on its steps.

Adrienne Garcia, an organizer of the event and graduate student studying English, was the first to speak. She thanked everyone for coming and encouraged others walking on the Quad to join them.

‘Don’t watch us! Join us!’ she yelled, and the protesters cheered.

Next to speak was poet Minnie Bruce Pratt, a women’s and gender studies professor. She spoke of the Occupy movement and said there has not been such a workers movement since the 1930s.

‘Police brutality isn’t new,’ she said. ‘We are challenging the system … the system they were assigned to protect. The police are not our friends.’

Risa C’Debaca, another organizer of the event and senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said growing up in an urban area, she witnessed acts of police brutality every day.

She also said police brutality was not new but was recently getting so much attention because of who the victims were.

‘Why do they care now? It has to do with money,’ C’Debaca said.

This was a common cry throughout the demonstration. Derek Ford, a graduate student in the School of Education and ANSWER Syracuse member, said the media is covering this act of police brutality because the victims were white college students. He also criticized the media for framing the story as if only one or two ‘bad’ police officers crossed the line.

‘It is not a case of a few bad apples. Literally the whole force is rotten,’ Ford said.

Occupy Syracuse member Madelyn Johnson called for Frank Fowler, chief of the Syracuse Police Department, and Chancellor Nancy Cantor to show their support and make a statement that police brutality will not occur at SU.

Anir Ban, a doctoral candidate in political science, said it was important for him to go to the demonstration because talking about police brutality isn’t enough. He said he has been disappointed in the lack of undergraduate activism in response to events like this. He also said it’s important for faculty to encourage students to get more involved in the Occupy movement — even if it takes class time to talk about it or to physically go there.

After the demonstration, Garcia, one of the organizers, also said she wanted to extend this movement to the community and get faculty more involved. 

Welshans, graduate student and organizer of the demonstration, said she hopes to start an Occupy Wall Street learn-in, where a group of students will reserve a space and have an open and educational discussion about what’s going on in the Occupy movement. It will be a more formal space for ‘communal conversation,’ she said.

‘It’s about creating a police force that does not see themselves as a punitive body, but as protecting the interests of students,’ said Welshans, who hopes to be an English professor.

Although she acknowledges the criticism by some that the police are just doing their jobs and the students at UC Davis no longer had the right to occupy the campus, she said the bigger picture is that no one should ever be treated with that kind of violence without first presenting a violent threat.

Said Welshans: ‘I would jump the cop if they were pepper spraying one of my students.’

seschust@syr.edu

Published on November 30, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Sarah: seschust@syr.edu