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Thursday, February 09, 2017

UC Berkeley police defend 'hands-off' approach to riot

University of California, Berkeley police defended its decision to take a hands-off approach in its effort to handle the riot that took place on campus last week ahead of Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos’ speech to Republicans at the school.

A group of about 150 rioters overtook peaceful protesters and used metal rods, Molotov cocktails and commercial-grade fireworks to destroy parts of downtown Berkeley while police largely stood to the side. Raging fires were also set on campus. The damaged total about $100,000 and only one person was arrested.

Berkeley police Sgt. Sabrina Reich said officers feared increased violence and more serious injuries if the violence escalated accompanied by a heavier-handed police response. Investigators are reviewing extensive video taken during the protest and more arrests are possible, she said.

Several officers did fire paint-ball like guns to mark rioters for detention and their possible arrest, she said. But if officers had made more arrests at the scene, up to three officers would have had to give up crowd control duty to escort each suspected rioter to jail, Reich said.

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What if the property owners decide to not pay a pro-rated portion of their property tax for proper police protection. I think it is time for the property owners, insurance companies, and others involved to start taking these local governments to task.

Anonymous said...

No arrest made no crime happened and crimes stats are low.

Anonymous said...

Crowd control? WTH is she smoking? How is it crowd CONTROL when you have malicious destruction, arson, assault and rioting going on right in front of you? If that is crowd control I would not trust them to be a crossing guard! I am willing to bet a years pay Sabrina Reich is a Democrat...a perfect example of stupidity having no bounds. Amazed meter pegged again!

Anonymous said...


Translation: We didn't wanna, and the boss (former Sec'y of Homeland Security) didn't wanna so we didn't do anything but collect the overtime pay!

Anonymous said...

Blue snowflakes.

Anonymous said...

WOW! I like the paintball method of "marking" the offenders. Kind of like a dye pack in bills after a bank robbery. No denying involvement and then throw the book at the worms for rioting and mayhem. Cowards cover their faces to escape being identified so let's see what cajones they have in court. I bet they cry like little girls.