At 1PM today on the Polk Street steps of City Hall, there was a rally condemning the police brutality at a San Francisco City College student protest yesterday.
Aacross Polk Stree, meanwhile, there were a half a dozen police officers standing mutely, backed up by a larger police contingent a half block away at Bill Graham Auditorium.
The protest at City College concerned the actions of the California state-appointed special trustee, Dr. Robert Agrella. He has been attempting to trim the sails of the huge institution to satisfy the whims of the controversial ACCJC (Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges) which is threatening to pull the school's accreditation by this summer. (Click here for a story by Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez at the SF Bay Guardian.)
On Thursday, after a small group of students entered Conlan Hall, the administrative building where Agrella has his offices, the San Francisco Police Department joined the campus police force and escalated the violence, ending with some head bashing, pepper spraying, and a pair of arrests. (click here for some video). It seems every young American generation needs to learn that television cop shows are a lie and the police really are not your friends.
At Friday's City Hall demonstration, City College board member Rafael Mandelman and SF Supervisor John Avalos (above, left to right) were spotted on the stairs watching the speeches, looking like the definition of ineffectual. Mandelman was finally elected to a citywide office a couple of years ago, and then the ACCJC dropped the accreditation bomb on City College, and Mandelman was soon out of his elective office, replaced by Agrella. Supervisor Avalos is a lame duck in the final years of his two terms, wondering what he's going to do next for a job, which at least speaks to his personal integrity.
Meanwhile, when the San Francisco Police Department is not beating up protesters or stealing from drug dealers in Tenderloin hotels, they are now shooting each other and blaming it on any scapegoat they can find (click here).
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