[ Please note: the student contact at the HCC Anti-War Coalition is Charles Peterson, charlest.peterson@gmail.com ]
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. 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 your concerns.
President Messner 1-413-552-2222 or 2223
The college issued a statement, one that the students find full of factual errors.
Here is the link to the college statement.