[O29] Full Story: Police Assault Holyoke Counter-Recruiters

[Keith Rosenthal]

from campusantiwar.net

Police Assault Counter-Recruitment Protestors at Holyoke Community 
College







REPRESSION ON CAMPUS
Police Assault Student Counter-Recruitment Protestors at Holyoke 
Community College



On September 29, 2005, students from Holyoke Community College in 
Massachusetts assembled to peacefully protest military recruitment on 
their campus. The students were assaulted by police and at least one 
student was maced by an officer. Please read the statement of the 
Holyoke Community College Anti-war Coalition, and register your 
concerns with Holyoke Community College. President Messner: 
1-413-552-2222

Statement from Holyoke Community College Anti-war Coalition
September 29, 2005

To Dr. William Messner, President of Holyoke Community College:

We are writing to express our deep outrage at the events of September 
29, when campus police assaulted peaceful student protesters and 
sprayed one student with mace.

Approximately thirty activists, many of them members of Holyoke 
Community College’s Anti War Coalition, exercising their First 
Amendment rights to “assemble and petition government for redress of 
grievances,” participated in a planned, peaceful picket of Army 
National Guard recruiters in the lobby of the college cafeteria. 
This was a diverse group of students, black, white, latino, gay, 
straight, men and women, united in peaceful and vocal opposition to 
US policy in Iraq, the spending priorities of the US political 
system, and the college’s hypocrisy in giving preferential, and we 
believe illegal, access to military recruiters whose enlistment 
policies bar gays and lesbians-- in violation of the college’s own 
anti-discrimination policies. Furthermore, we believe that the 
college’s policies violate Massachusetts laws that prohibit 
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Students at HCC are encouraged to voice their opinions, and yet in 
this case, when students did exactly that, they became the victims of 
police brutality. Students who had passed through the cafeteria at 
7:30AM noted then that the police were already present —even though 
recruiters were not scheduled to begin tabling until 10AM.

The police assault on the students began when one student standing in 
front of Officer Landry held aloft with both hands a hand-lettered, 
poster board sign reading “Cops are hypocrites.” The sign had no 
stick attached to it. At that point, Peter Mascaro, head of Campus 
Security, reached over Officer Landry’s head, snatched the sign from 
the student’s hands, saying “That is inappropriate!” In 
surprise the student tried to reach for his sign. At this point the 
campus police, led by Officer Landry, assaulted the student. Mr. 
Mascaro ordered Officer Landry, “Let him go.” Officer Landry 
heatedly replied “Are you serious?” The police officer’s 
inappropriate grabbing of the sign constituted the battery.

Three other officers joined Officer Landry in grabbing each of the 
student’s limbs and hoisted him off the ground. Other students 
instinctively tried to protect the student being assaulted. When the 
officers lost their grip on the student, he backed away and raised 
his hands in the air indicating his non-violent posture. At 
approximately that moment, Officer Landry maced a different student, 
one who was not doing anything or making any gestures to do anything 
at the time.

Both of the students who were battered by campus police are 
upstanding members of the HCC community. One is a tutor in the CAPS 
Center. The other received the David James Taylor Excellence in 
Philosophy Award, is Vice President for Academic Affairs on the 
Student Senate, is a member of the College’s Learning Communities 
Committee, and is a frequent contributor to the student newspaper. 
Several of the activists involved observed that the student who was 
maced had consistently played a moderating role in the protest.

As the assault was taking place, approximately a dozen College 
Republicans were moving forward, pumping their fists in the air, 
shouting and encouraging the Officers on. It should be noted that the 
Officer Scott Landry (HCC Badge Number 4), the officer who used mace 
on the student, is also an Advisor to the College Republican Club at 
HCC. Throughout the morning, the campus police force ignored the 
activities of the College Republicans and were only deployed against 
the protesters.

At approximately this time college officials appear to have called 
local and State Police, and at least twenty state police arrived in 
riot gear and gas masks. Officer Landry looked at one of the 
protesters and, observing that he was wearing a button reading 
“Lesbian and Gay Liberation,” loudly uttered an obviously 
homophobic taunt: “He’ll have fun in jail.” As Officer Landry 
is an employee of the college, we believe that his taunt constituted 
illegal and actionable discrimination under Massachusetts laws.

By this time, the protesting students were trying to peacefully 
disperse and attend to the traumatized students who had been battered 
by campus police. Riot police amassed in the cafeteria with boxes 
labeled “gas masks.”

We want to know the if the police were preparing to deploy gas in the 
cafeteria—a place where there were many students, cafeteria workers, 
and some children present.

With riot police threateningly lined up in the stairwell, groups of 
students hostile to the protesters surrounded and came close to 
rioting against the small crowd who had left the building and were 
trapped in the courtyard outside.

During this time, one student reports that he went to get a drink of 
water in the student lounge and ten to fifteen police in full riot 
gear pointed their guns at the student and said “we’re not letting 
anyone in or out of here.”

We demand 1) an immediate, unconditional public apology from the 
college; 2) a pledge of non-retaliation against the activists 
involved; 3) a thorough and impartial investigation into these 
incidents; and finally, 4) that the military recruiters not be 
allowed back to our college, as their actions and those of the 
military discriminate against people based on their sexual 
orientation, in violation of Massachusetts law and college policy. 
Furthermore, the military is engaging in an economic draft against 
working class and poor people in an attempt to buttress this 
nation’s illegal war against Iraq.

Thank You,

Members of the Anti War Coalition at Holyoke Community College

Please call Holyoke Community College to register you concerns.


HCC Main Number 1-413-552-2600

President Messner 1-413-552-2222




		
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