The Humboldt County District Attorney's Office has decided not to prosecute 27 of the 39 people arrested during the week-long occupation of Siemens Hall on the Cal Poly Humboldt campus in April, while cases involving the other 12 have been referred back to the University Police Department for further investigation.
District Attorney Stacey Eads told the Journal the decision not to file charges against the 27 was made due to insufficient evidence and/or because prosecutions wouldn't serve the "interest of justice."
Eads' decision came on the heels of the release of a scathing report by OIR Group, the independent police auditor contracted by the city of Eureka as a part of its police oversight program, which was asked to look into Eureka officers' role in the initial protest response on April 22. While the report determines EPD officers acted appropriately and justified their use of force on protesters, it was sharply critical of the university's handling of the initial protest, and the decision to try to clear Siemens Hall and arrest its occupants, saying "operational planning was regrettably deficient."
Meanwhile, a Journal investigation into the first hours of the protest — a demonstration that would ultimately see Siemens Hall occupied for a week until hundreds of police officers were brought from out of the area to clear the campus on April 30 — has cast further doubt on administrators' characterizations of the initial protest.
Police Calls
From some of its earliest statements on the April 22 protest, which saw about 30 people enter Siemens Hall at about 4:30 p.m., the university has asserted that protesters almost immediately began vandalizing property and barricading the building's doors.
An April 23 press release stated the building was "shut down after protesters began disrupting classes and university operations, and vandalizing university property." Four days later, a press release asserted police were called to the building to remove protesters because "the situations was becoming increasingly dangerous," saying the protesters had "blocked exits ... creating safety hazards." In an interview with the Journal, Chief of Staff Mark Johnson said employees called police to the building that day because they felt unsafe when protesters started putting up "barriers around the doors." Johnson added he personally saw protesters begin vandalizing the building and barricading doors before police arrived on scene.
"This wasn't a peaceful protest," he said. "This wasn't an issue of free speech. This was an issue of lawless behavior that was premeditated."
But police calls for service from Siemens Hall that afternoon don't seem to support that characterization, and an independent journalist who documented the protests first hours flatly disputes it.
In the days after the occupation of Siemens Hall came to an end, with scores of officers clearing the campus and arresting 32 people peacefully assembled in the university quad, the Journal submitted a California Public Records Act request seeking recordings or transcripts of any 911 calls UPD received from Siemens Hall on April 22, as well as body worn camera footage from any university officers who responded to the scene. Public records coordinator Michelle Williams responded 10 days later to say the university had responsive records, though some may be subject to exemptions allowing the university to withhold them. Williams said the university would gather the records and redact privileged information, estimating the records would be available July 1.
On July 19, public records assistant Joy Finney followed up to say, "after further inquiry, the university has determined there are no responsive records to your request." While the Journal had specifically requested recordings of 911 calls and video footage from the responses to them, it turns out none of the three people who called police from Siemens Hall that day deemed the circumstance exigent enough to call 911. Instead, they called the department's business line.
"In the spirit of transparency, recordings of those calls are attached here," Finney wrote, declining to address the request for related body worn camera footage. (The Journal is resubmitting that request, asking for all footage from officers who responded to Siemens Hall that day.)
In the six call recordings released — which include four calls between Presidential Aide Paula Petersen and a UPD dispatcher, as well as two calls to UPD from other unidentified employees in Siemens Hall — no one expresses fears for their safety or reports any vandalism in progress.
"Just come on up to Siemens Hall, some little protest, little something, going on out there. We're fine and safe," Petersen tells UPD in the first call received at 4:28 p.m., before making reference to the university's time, place and manner regulations that limit protest activities. "They're just out and about kind of disrupting time — whatever it's called. Time, manner, place. So if we could have a UPD come up?"
"Yes," the dispatcher responds. "Sounds good. We will send someone there just to patrol and make sure everything's OK."
"Yep," Petersen says. "And they shouldn't be disruptive."
Petersen calls back seven minutes later to report the protesters were setting up tents in the hallway, saying Johnson told her, "If they're disrupting business, call UPD."
UPD then received a call from an unidentified employee asking if the department was aware of the protest and noting that "people are moving furniture around outside the president's office." UPD thanked the employee for the call. Another employee called a short time later to report there were a "bunch of students there protesting Palestine and talking about barricading the building and stuff." The dispatcher said an officer was being sent over "right now."
Petersen then called again at 4:48 p.m. to report Johnson was requesting officers "remove" two protesters from the building.
"There are two right outside our door," she said. "The chief of staff went out, asked who they were, they refused to identify themselves. They're occupying the space — air quotes 'occupying' — and he wants them removed."
"OK," dispatch responds. "We're headed there right now."
"OK," Petersen says, adding in a joking tone, "Just keeping you up to date."
A Reporter's Account
If you've seen one video of the violent scrum between officers and protesters at the main entryway to Siemens Hall on April 22, it's likely the one captured by local freelance reporter Ryan Hutson that went viral, in part because it caught a protester using a 5-gallon plastic water jug to bonk a helmeted officer over the head, launching the so-called "jug of justice" to social media stardom as a symbol of Gaza solidarity.
But the video Hutson captured about an hour earlier is just as revelatory. (See this and all of Hutson's published videos from the protest at her Humboldt Freelance Reporting YouTube page, youtube.com/@HumboldtFreelance/videos.)
Hutson says she headed to the Cal Poly Humboldt campus shortly after 5 p.m. A regular contributor to local news site Red Headed Blackbelt (kymkemp.com), Hutson for months had been covering the weekly pro-Palestine demonstrations at the Humboldt County Courthouse and says she'd been cryptically tipped off by a student activist by text, "I think there's something happening on campus you might want to see."
"When I showed up there, it was casual," Hutson says. "There was not a big scene. There was no block on the door."
Hutson says when she entered Siemens Hall, she noticed protest signs taped to the glass doors, with slogans like "Free Palestine" and "Occupation for a Free Palestine" scrawled on 8.5-by-11-inch lined paper. She began live streaming video to social media at 5:36 p.m. and stepped inside. She quickly finds a group of about 15 protesters playing makeshifts drums and chanting, "Free, free, free Palestine," as they follow UPD officers who are clearing the building, telling students and staff in classrooms to leave. While clearly disruptive, the protesters don't appear threatening, violent or destructive. Seemingly having cleared the building of everyone not affiliated with the protest, the UPD officers leave and the group of protesters disbands, declining to talk to Hutson. She then captures video throughout the building, none of which appears to have yet been vandalized, and documents that at the building's four entrances had not yet been barricaded at that point.
Hutson says she does not recall seeing any vandalism in the hour or so she spent in the building before police tried to force their way inside, and the only bit captured in video and photos taken during that period is the word "divest" written in Sharpie over a Department of Economics door placard. She noted protesters had brought sleeping bags and tents, as well as board games, snacks and a miniature accordion.
"I didn't see any threats, I didn't see any chaos, I didn't see any violence," she says. "I didn't see anything concerning other than students who were going to camp inside the building."
Hutson says during this period she approached then Interim UPD Chief Peter Cress, who was on scene and asked about protesters' plans to stay the night. She says he responded unequivocally, saying something to the effect of, "No, that's not going to happen." Hutson says she then asked whether they'd be asked to leave or arrested, and he responded, "That's up to them."
A short time later, Hutson says one of the protesters asked her what Cress had told her and she relayed his responses.
"He then spread word that, 'Hey, they're not going to let us stay overnight,'" Hutson says, adding that it also became apparent protesters were either listening to the police scanner or receiving information from someone who was, as they were aware police were asking for assistance and staging nearby.
"They were surprised," she said of the protesters. "They didn't expect the police to have this reaction. They really expected they'd be able to camp out overnight and occupy Siemens Hall to claim this space for the cause. And they really felt justified in doing that."
Hutson says she and protesters could see police gathering in the quad area in front of Siemens Hall as officers arrived with tactical shields, helmets and other gear.
"There was palpable fear, especially once you could see officers gathering outside," she says. "That's when I saw [protesters'] reaction change. They became a little more organized. There was a student in the hallway kind of guiding people on how to establish their rights if they were going to get arrested. ... That was kind of a powerful moment when they realized, 'We have to protect ourselves and here's how we're going to do it.'"
As officers readied outside to make entry, Hutson says some protesters began gathering furniture and putting together a makeshift barricade in the entryway.
"The barricading happened pretty quickly once they realized there was a SWAT team on the quad," she says. "And it didn't happen before. It was a response to seeing [officers gathering] on the quad."
When protesters briefly opened Siemens Hall to the public a handful of days later, some had scrawled graffiti on the walls, defacing artwork and furniture, mostly with pro-Palestine slogans. Hutson says none of that was present before police attempted to forcefully clear the building.
"I don't think [protesters] had it in their heads that they would be tagging things because that just wasn't happening initially," she says. "I just don't see that as having been part of their objective. I think it became their response."
'Lack of Effective Planning and Command'
Prepared at the request of Eureka City Councilmembers Leslie Castellano and Kati Moulton, the OIR Group's report is squarely focused on whether EPD officers who responded to Siemens Hall on April 22 acted appropriately and within policy, fitting into the independent police auditor's oversight framework with the city. However, the report makes clear auditors felt strongly that responding officers had been put in an untenable position.
"Law enforcement's clash with protestors on the afternoon of April 22 evidenced a lack of effective planning and command," the report states.
In discussing the report's findings at a recent Community Oversight Police Practices Board meeting, EPD Chief Brian Stephens said his department received a mutual aid request from UPD at about 5:30 p.m. on April 22.
"They wanted to go in and make arrests and remove those individuals from inside campus property," Stevens said, adding that the department always honors such mutual aid requests and he agreed to send a sergeant and four officers. A short time later, Stevens said, a countywide Code 30 call went out, asking for any available officer to respond with lights and sirens to campus. Such a call-out is typically reserved for police shootings, an officer down or the most serious of traffic accidents.
Stevens said he called his sergeant. "He basically told me, 'Things have gotten bad and we need assistance immediately."
The OIR Group report states that when EPD officers arrived on scene, they met with a group of about 15 officers from multiple agencies and a member of UPD's command staff, who said the plan was to enter Siemens Hall from a rear upstairs door and push protestors out the front door, where they would be arrested by waiting officers. But there is no rear upstairs door to Siemens Hall, the sole second-floor entrance of which opens onto the university quad. The report notes that EPD officers requested a map of the building and were told there wasn't one available.
"According to EPD officers, UPD also advised that its advance team had cleared out furniture that the protestors had used to barricade the entrances to the hall," the report states. However, according to Hutson and video she captured, no such barricades had existed at this point. "But then," the report continues, "instead of walking officers to the rear door as planned, UPD directed the team through the main quad and to the front door of Siemens Hall."
The report notes a host of tactical issues with UPD's plan to enter through the main door, including that it put officers between a group of protesters inside the building and a large crowd gathering directly in front of the building. As officers approached the building, the report states that the crowd closed in behind them, and officers registered "surprise" when they found the doors to Siemens Hall's foyer blocked by furniture, including cabinets, bookshelves, desks and chairs.
"Despite these circumstances, UPD command gave orders to enter the hall and begin arresting protesters," the report states. When officers began to clear the furniture from the entrance, protesters began to chant loudly, "We are not afraid of you," huddled together behind the furniture blockade and, according to the report, someone began throwing canned food at the officers. (In Hutson's video, you can see items being thrown at the officers, though it's impossible to discern what they are. Hutson, meanwhile, says she does not believe protestors were throwing cans, saying she believes it would have "really stood out" because it could "seriously hurt someone.")
Because EPD officers had responded with tactical shields and helmets for crowd control, they were quickly moved to the front line to cover for deputies and other officers who'd arrived without, according to the report.
"With their shields up, EPD officers stepped toward the crowd of protestors just beyond the foyer, navigating over the remaining barricades," the report states. "As officers pushed in, the protestors surged forward forcefully, chanting 'get the f*** out!'"
A scrum ensued, with one EPD officer at one point being pushed back over a filing cabinet and getting stuck under the surging bodies. Two sheriff's deputies ultimately pulled her to safety. During the fray, EPD officers used force — a "closed-fist strike" to a protester's upper torso, a possible kick to another's groin, and a variety of baton strikes and jabs to multiple protestors. But the report states that investigation found all the uses of force to be justified, targeted at specific protestors who posed immediate threats.
At one point, seeing that the crowd inside Siemens Hall seemed to be growing, the EPD sergeant asked UPD if all entrances to Siemens Hall had been blocked off and was told they had not, at which point he attempted to organize teams to stage at the building's other entrances. The report notes the sergeant "expressed concerns about the mission several times," including that UPD had no effective arrest plan, noting that those arrested had to be escorted through a crowd to police vehicles a "significant distance away."
After a few minutes of unsuccessfully trying to push inside Siemens Hall, officers withdrew. About 45 minutes after EPD initially got to campus, backup arrived, including Stevens and other commanding officers.
"For the first time, command staff discussed a cohesive tactical plan for the remainder of the evening," the report states. "While UPD wanted to issue another dispersal order and begin moving or arresting the crowd in the quad, EPD and others advised to wait. ... UPD requested an armored vehicle and specialized weapons and tactics team."
A tense couple of hours followed as the crowd on the quad grew, but things remained peaceful. After the university issued a statement announcing the campus and Siemens Hall would remain closed through the following day, Stevens decided it was time for EPD to "pull all resources from the campus," according to the report.
The report notes the situation was complicated, "as many protest scenarios are," marked by a "diversity of behaviors and intentions" of protesters, some of whom were peaceful and exercising protected rights to speech, while others became violent toward officers.
But the report states flatly that operational planning "was regrettably deficient," noting there was no clear incident command, no contingency plans in place if circumstances changed (like the growing crowd in the quad or protesters reacting violently to officers' attempt to enter the building).
"Further," the report states, "there appeared to be no planned risk assessment that balanced the need for intervention with the safety of officers and protesters alike. Based on our review of available video and other evidence, there was no immediate threat beyond vandalism of university property at the time officers staged in the foyer, and no urgent need for law enforcement intervention."
In presenting the report's findings to the oversight board, OIR Group Principal Julie Ruhlin and police auditor Teresa Magula stressed that EPD's officers arrived on campus after university administration had directed UPD to clear Siemens Hall and arrest those inside. UPD the moved forward without "a concrete plan or a real clear objective, and really little or no chance to find what we would consider to be a successful resolution," Ruhlin said.
Three EPD officers were injured that evening, leaving campus bruised and battered, and Magula said it's fair to ask why.
"Certainly one of the questions is, look, if this is the crowd that you're facing, this is the situation that you're facing, why are you even there to begin with? Why were those officers staged at that front door of Siemens Hall?" she asked rhetorically. "It's an excellent question to ponder and look at. ... There was really in our review no risk assessment. What are the costs and benefits of having law enforcement intervention at this point?"
Thadeus Greenson (he/him) is the Journal's news editor. Reach him at (707) 442-1400, extension 321, or thad@ northcoastjournal.com.