Occupy Google Protesters Arrested.

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Categories: Front Page, Open Mic

Operation Occupy Google, which began early afternoon on June 23rd, came to at least a temporary halt as Mountain View police arrested some 10 Occupiers just before midnight on after they refused to leave.

Google execs refused to do anything about the Occupation in the afternoon, but apparently changed their minds as the evening wore on and demanded that the Mountain View police arrest for trespassing anyone who refused to leave.

A livestreamer, PunkBoySF, got arrested while videoing, along with the protesters.

Numerous accounts of the action came out in the main stream press, including the San Jose Mercury News, the International Business Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, KPIX television and TechCrunch, which wrote

People being arrested for remaining on private property without permission isn’t exactly news but the scale of the police action against what looked to have been a pretty low-key protest – that wasn’t really taking aim at Google the corporate entity itself – does seem somewhat disproportionate.

Google declined to comment on the arrests when contacted by TechCrunch.

As of this writing the status of the arrestees, whether they were cited and released, spent the night in jail and then released, or are still in some Santa Clara County jail is unknown to the author. The Occupy Google twitter has been silent on this.

Here’s how the action came down in tweets:

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One Response to “Occupy Google Protesters Arrested.”

  1. Big Red Ed

    The day started pretty well. After the Google renta-security tried to run the occupiers off of Google property and the police were called, the cops contacted higher ups at Google who said it was OK for us to plant our EZ Up and banners on their property. Google security even dropped off a case of water. We set up a little internet cafe with about 7-8 laptops and coffee, did banners, leafleted, listened to podcasts on net neutrality, and watched the endless stream of now-unbranded Google busen do the reverse commute from the ‘burbs to the hip urban communities that most of the young high-tech workforce actually prefers to live in.

    But around about 10 PM when it was evident that the group was planning on spending the night and a Channel 5 news van showed up the powers-that-be at Google decided they were not going to permit an overnight occupation and called out the cops again. It took a couple of hours, but finally 20-30 cops assembled along with a bus-style paddy wagon and they lined up opposite the occupation and made it clear that folks would be arrested if they didn’t mosey along.

    At the first whiff of danger I was already packing up computers, tables, batteries, etc, etc, and helped break down the EZ Up while most of the group tried to argue with the cops about free speech rights vs. private property (and we all know how that ends). It looked like the group was moving along, people had assembled in the park across the street, and some of the folks planned to continue the occupation at this park opposite the Googleplex when a couple of protestors slipped back on to the campus and tried talking to the cops (I guess they intended to be arrested). At that point the police obligingly arrested them, and when the group reassembled and tried to shame the police into letting them go the cops attacked and arrested everyone they could catch. Perhaps half the group was arrested, including Ayr, 11 people in all, while the rest made it away through the bushes in the park. In the meantime I doggedly continued packing my truck amid the sound and fury and when some of the cops asked if I was to be arrested as well the head cop said no, the fat fellow has been packing up the whole time, doing what we told him. There are some benefits to being a craven petty bourgeois coward. 🙂 (I’m attempting to insert a smiley-face here, because at least one reader thought some people who don’t know me might think my self-deprecating remarks are serious crit-self/crit)

    I was able to rescue everyone’s gear and the OO tables and canopy. The cops recognize a born kapo collaborator when they see one and even lent me a pen, paper and writing surface to transcribe everyone’s names and DOBs and even gave me Ayr’s gear when I told them (truthfully) that he had my Swiss army knife. One of the arrestees even claimed that he was helping me pack the truck (and he might have been, I was pretty busy, and am generally oblivious), and I said there were several people helping me pack though I didn’t know their names (true enough, I barely remember my own), and they released him after taking down my name and contact information.

    The survivors met up in a near-by mall and swapped stories and gear and I gave people the names of the arrestees. Strangely enough instead of excoriating me for my pusillanimity the survivors thanked me for rescuing everyone’s possessions and told me I was a capital bloke (but I know they all secretly abominate me anyway, just like all those voices in my head).

    Anywho, everyone was released from the San Jose Main Jail at about 4:30 AM and given a court date for August 9th, IIRC, except for Cranus, who being a singular fellow is being arraigned a couple of days later. Folks had planned to continue the occupation in the morning, but were too burned out, many of them hadn’t slept the night before the action (I got a lordly 4 hours and was up for 24 hours when I composed the bulk of this comment). I’ll put the court date on the calendar when I get more specifics about time and place.

    Love & solidarity,
    Ed