In what could be the largest show of police force in Arcata for a generation, documents shared by the Appeal and published this week shed some light on the plan to break up the occupation of Siemens Hall on the Cal Poly Humboldt campus with hundreds of police. The protests began at Siemens Hall on April 22 and lasted into May.
In the plan and emails, officials said they expected violence from protesters and requested hundreds of officers to restore law and order on campus.
“The ongoing demonstration continues to have an anti-law enforcement and anti-government focus. Remaining demonstrators have shown a strong commitment to their pro-Palestinian and anti-law enforcement ideology, and there is a strong possibility of violence against responding officers,” Ryan Derby, manager of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services, wrote in an April 27 email that was included in the documents. Derby requested a total of 250 law enforcement officers for April 29 and April 30, where about 30 people were arrested en mass, mostly sitting in a circle with linked arms on the quad.
The draft plan, prepared by Peter Cress, then-interim police chief for Cal Poly Humboldt, outlines out various objectives, logistics and representatives involved. It had five goals, one of which is “where possible, protecting the rights, safety and health of students and employees while eliminating the threat of domestic violent extremism and criminal behavior.”
Supposed threats of violence stem from the events of April 22, in which police and protesters were injured. Video reporting by Ryan Hudson of Redheaded Blackbelt showed a line of police and protesters hitting each other — police with batons and shields and one protester using an empty plastic water cooler bottle to hit back, something that became a symbol of resistance against police dismantling university encampments across the country. The university called police to drive out the sit-in in Siemens Hall, which hosts administrator offices.
Multiple protesters told the Times-Standard during the occupation that barricading the hall came as a response to police. The occupation was shaped with anti-police imagery and chants, as police across the country had arrested protesters on college campuses condemning America’s financial support of the Israeli military amid the war in Gaza.
The Appeal also found a request to loop in the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, which provides intelligence for anti-crime and anti-terrorism efforts.
Derby and incident commander Cress were unable to comment Friday, but Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal spoke to the Times-Standard about the documents. Honsal, who noted he was not the incident commander of the operation, explained that NCRIC may have provided intelligence, like what’s happening at other campuses across the country and state. He estimated in total, 25-30 agencies were involved.
He also said that some of the documents were accidentally sent by HCSO to The Appeal.