CA Occupy activists protest at bank, 95 arrested

By: BETH DUFF-BROWN | 11/17/11 12:21 AM
Associated Press

D.J. App, of Berkeley, sweeps the Occupy Cal campsite in Sproul Plaza on the campus of University of California at Berkeley, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011, in Berkeley, Calif. Students held the campsite despite threats from the university's police that the lodging was illegal.
D.J. App, of Berkeley, sweeps the Occupy Cal campsite in Sproul Plaza on the campus of University of California at Berkeley, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011, in Berkeley, Calif. Students held the campsite despite threats from the university's police that the lodging was illegal.

Taking their protest to a financial center, anti-Wall Street activists swarmed into a San Francisco bank and tried to set up camp in the lobby.
About 100 demonstrators rushed into the Bank of America branch Wednesday, chanting "money for schools and education, not for banks and corporations."
Police in riot gear responded and began cuffing the activists one-by-one as other demonstrators surrounded the building, blocking entrances and exits.
After protesters had dispersed, police said 95 activists were arrested, taken to jail, cited and released.
No injuries were reported in the protest, one of several in the area focusing on school funding.
Willow Curless, 63, said she and her husband rode their bicycles from their home in Marin County and watched the protest from outside the bank.
"I honor these people in there," she said. "They're making an important statement for the 99 percent."
In a separate protest, about 250 demonstrators assembled in front of the State Building on Golden Gate Avenue for about 90 minutes, with some complaining of higher fees charged to public college students in California.
Elsewhere, students and anti-Wall Street activists settled into a new encampment at the University of California, Berkeley, and visited the state Capitol to demand the restoration of funding for higher education.
At Berkeley, police watched over about two dozen tents that were pitched Tuesday night on a student plaza despite a campus policy that forbids camping. Police warned that protesters could be arrested if they didn't leave.
Seth Weinberg, a 20-year-old cognitive science major, said he slept in a tent on Sproul Plaza to press the university fee issue.
"There should be a way for anyone who wants to go to college if they choose to," Weinberg said. "What the university doesn't understand is that we are not camping out. This is a constant protest."
In Sacramento, about 75 student leaders and a few administrators from UC Berkeley and the University of California, Davis lobbied lawmakers and the governor to allocate more money to education.
Adam Thongsavat, student body president at UC Davis, called on lawmakers to be "more courageous, more aggressive and more thoughtful."
"Come to our campuses and see how your actions affect us," he said. "I want you all to tell us why prisons deserve more spending than universities."
University of California President Mark Yudof issued a statement of support for the students' "passion and conviction" in support of public higher education.
"We also suffer together the strains caused by what has been a long pattern of state disinvestment in the University of California," he said.
The marches in support of higher education came as police in San Francisco and San Diego cleared encampments in those cities, citing public health and safety concerns.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee met with Occupy SF activists to let them know an expansion of their camp would not be tolerated.
"I did give the order to our police chief this morning that there cannot be an expansion of what we're perceiving to be a health hazard in the city," Lee said after the meeting.
Police once again broke up the Occupy encampment in San Diego that officials said posed a growing problem with violence and mounting trash.
Nine people were arrested and one other was cited and released during the 2 a.m. raid.
As some encampments came down, the tent city at UC Berkeley remained after a day of activism against big banks and education cuts culminated with about 4,000 people rallying Tuesday night at a speech by former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
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Duff-Brown reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Garance Burke in San Francisco, Julie Watson in San Diego and Juliet Williams in Sacramento also contributed to this report.