3 WU students arrested in Occupy protest
Three Washington University students were arrested Thursday at an Occupy St. Louis protest downtown.
The three students, seniors Adam Hasz and Molly Gott, and sophomore Kait Mauro, were arrested by the Martin Luther King Bridge.
The students participated in the march from Kiener Plaza to the bridge as part of a national day of action recognized by the entire Occupy movement. The Post-Dispatch reported that 800 people marched and 14 were arrested.
Upon arriving at the bridge, Hasz said that protesters were given the option to either step back or to be arrested.
Hasz, Gott and Mauro chose to stay put, and were put under arrest.
“The people who were willing to take the rap stood forward and the others stood back,” Hasz said.“It means that I am fully committed to the ideas of the occupy movement and making it my own. The arrest symbolized my personal commitment.”
Hasz and Mauro hope to inform the greater University community to the merits of the Occupy movement through their protests.
They say, in comparison to schools like University of California at Berkeley, few students at Washington University are getting involved in the Occupy movement.
“For me it’s really about the fact that everyone here has privilege… it’s not in my experience a place that fosters action,” Mauro said. “We spend so much time talking about really good questions but at a certain point it becomes an excuse to not take action, but i think there has to be a balance of both in the culture.”
That’s a good point actually. I can read the news to get the facts and figures about Occupy. I want to hear about these students’ personal stories and reasons for joining the movement.
I’m sure that the only reason these students felt comfortable with getting arrested was that they have privilege. Most people don’t come from circumstances where it isn’t a big deal to get arrested when it could have easily been prevented. Choosing not to get arrested doesn’t mean you aren’t “fully committed” to a movement.
Actually, all 800 of us risked arrest. We were surrounded by police cars and paddy wagons as we marched. Had anybody managed to provoke violence (and some people were clearly trying to do so) more people might have been arrested, and the arrests may have been violent. None of this happened because we were vigilant, both protestors and police.
Those of us who went along on the wildcat breakout march to the old municipal courthouse (for which the surrounded march may or may not have been a diversion) certainly risked arrest. We are lucky to have a good working relationship with the local police. Many sympathize with us, and many are secret or open members of Occupy the Police.
It is not “safe” to get arrested, or to risk arrest, even for the privileged. It is never safe to be fully committed to a cause.
‘“The people who were willing to take the rap stood forward and the others stood back,” Hasz said’
It was a planned arrest, and fortunately it went more or less as planned. Fortunately nobody was hurt. That is the the most important thing.
Civil disobedience is a great American tradition but the tactic is controversial, and always will be. Please see Henry David Thoreau’s “On Civil Disobedience.”
http://www.studlife.com/forum/op-ed-submission/2011/11/17/occupy-wall-street%E2%80%99s-2-month-anniversary-a-call-to-action/
This article might be more interesting if StudLife asked Molly what she was protesting. Or was the point just to get arrested?