2/19 Arrest
Feb 21st, 2009 by Take Back NYU!
Alex D., 21-year-old NYU student majoring in studio art, was - to our knowledge - the only person arrested last night at the NYU occupation solidarity rally. He has been charged with:
- Unlawful Assembly, Class A Misdemeanor
- Inciting a Riot, Class A Misdemeanor
- Obstruction of Government Administration, Class A Misdemeanor
- Resisting Arrest, Class A Misdemeanor
- Disorderly Conducts, 3 counts, Violation
As of now (2/21) he is safe and has legal representation. One other individual was arrested nearby for possessing a weapon and has been wrongly assumed part of Take Back NYU!.
this is so fucked up. please put as much pressure as possible to get all of these charges dropped. i am sure you will be doing this though. thier intimidation will have no affect on us. and just think about it, after everything ‘goes down,’ they’ll be the one looking for jobs.
in solidarity,
from chicago.
A studio art major at a $50,000 a year school. Not surprising that he was out-of-touch enough with reality to take part in this protest.
Alex, when you get expelled try SVA or a CUNY and save your parents some cash.
[...] are reports of students who participated in the action being denied access to their dormatories, arrested, and who knows what [...]
I am completely shocked that you do not know for sure how many of your own were arrested: “was - to our knowledge - the only person arrested last night.” WHAT?!?! The very first rule of civil disobedience is to keep track of your fellows at all times. I am a veteran activist - I won’t get into what I think of your demands here, but let’s leave it at extraordinarily disappointing in their incoherence and shallowness - but I must emphasize that you if you’re going to engage in this sort of activity you are ethically obliged to know WHO is risking arrest, WHEN any arrests take place, WHERE any arresteess are taken and WHAT are the charges against any arestees. Well, at least you know the charges.
Steve -
That disclaimer was there to indicate that we can’t always be sure. There were a thousand activists out Thursday night. While we did have a dozen legal observers, a handful of I-Witness folks, and a few medics there, we simply lack the resources to have a patrol in any way. Regardless, as of now, we are quite certain that Alex was the only one arrested.
-Banu
For all the knee-jerk commentators who assume that Alex D. is white, upper-middle class, and somehow deserves to take the fall for a protest *you* may not have wanted to participate in, you should know that neither of his parents have put a single dime toward his NYU education.
So if he wanted NYU to disclose how they have chosen to allocate the enormous amount of cash that he started borrowing at the age of eighteen, and gets thrown in jail for demonstrating that, he is more fucked for it than the majority of NYU students would be.
Possible expulsion, bankruptcy, and no mommy and daddy to bail him out–how’s that for street cred.
Was he the only person that got arrested in this whole debacle?
Is he gonna get any legal help? Are there any NYU law students that are supportive of TBNYU! that he (and the other activists involved) can turn to for free legal advice? Maybe they can help plan these negotiations and occupations better so at least one demand can be met by the administration.
Also, I think that if these students were truly dedicated to fighting for the causes (which for the most part I see as being valid, pertinent and timely), they should be ready to fare the consequences of their actions. They should have been well aware that they risked expulsion, eviction from student housing and even arrests. Having the first demand as “amnesty for all those involved in the demonstration” makes it seem like these activists are only dedicated to their causes insofar as they don’t have to be inconvenienced themselves.
An effective occupation should disrupt the school and make it so costly for the administration to contain the protesters that they have no other choice but to meet their demands (or send in a swat team, eek). Being a nuisance for 3 days in a student cafeteria accomplishes very little. A successful occupation may last weeks, maybe even months. It takes a lot of preparation, which no doubt TBNYU did, but if they were legitimately “in it for the long haul” they would have brought in more than a month’s supply of food (donut holes, really? gross.) and would have been prepared for the scare tactics of the administration.
I understand that the administration pulled some shady tricks and brought the students into the negotiating table under false pretenses, made empty threats and whatnot. How could they not see this behavior coming? if they knew that the administration is as secretive and disaffected by TBNYU! to begin with, they should have strategized more on how to approach these things that come naturally with protesting against any institution. Also, the New School occupation was hardly a success, I fail to see how employing the new school occupation model would have fared any better at NYU.
It seems that the only good that came from this occupation is that is has added to the dialogue surrounding the call for greater transparency and accountability for university administrations. Great, awesome and kudos for that. However, the strategy and execution of this occupation was, in my eyes, pathetic and could have been done a lot better. I also think that TBNYU! should reach out to more than just the left wing students and appeal to other students as to why their demands are in the interest of the ENTIRE student body and not just those who already agree with them. (i saw in a youtube video where someone outside of Kimmel yelled to the crowd “Call all your left wing friends and have them come here and show support.” Why does this have to be exclusively left wing / anarchist / radical? Shouldn’t this warrant the attention and support of all political orientations?)
That being said, TBNYU! and other student uprisings should figure their stuff out, refine their demands, expand their support and create a better strategy for having their demands heard by the right people and following through on making sure that these demands are met.
My two cents on the demands:
Please don’t make Bobst public, it’s a horrid library to begin with (the NYPL is way better and already public).
Why not approach the Middle Eastern Studies or the Politics department about creating/sponsoring student exchanges for students from both Israel and Palestine to create a dialogue instead of just calling for university scholarships for University of Gaza. This method seems less likely to piss off the Bronfman Center, and may even get their support.
You Frauds.. Still wondering why the moderator is removing most of the negative replies (which were the MAJORITY) and leaving the few positive ones which are probably being left by the people expelled anyway… What losers. I think Mickey D’s on W3rd is hiring.
James, WTFUCK is wrong with working at MickeyD’s. Your a snob man.
Art studio majors obviously should be put in charge of finances, because they must have greater social responsibilty than say accountants and lawyers…
See, it is all so obvious!
I guess that Alex should have, if he had no money, chosen a field that would pay him back for his investment. That field is SO not Art Studio.