Occupy Riverside Members Angered Over Police Treatment

Eleven Occupy Riverside protestors were arrested Sunday by police attempting to clear out the encampment, which has been set up on Main Street in the city’s downtown.

However the camp had been reestablished by 9:30 p.m. by Occupiers furious over the police raid.

“It just blew my mind,” said Heidi Martin, of Riverside. Amateur video captured a shot of her daughter, 21-year-old Breezy Rondilone, being thrown to the ground by an officer.

“She’s 105 pounds, maybe 5-foot-2,” Martin said. “She might have been one of the smallest members.”

Officers raided the camp on Main Street in Riverside about 3:30 p.m. Sunday. They began warning campers to move or face arrest. Protesters held their ground, forming a human chain around a food service area.

Eight face charges of resisting or delaying an officer. Two were arrested for assault on an officer and one was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon -- a full can of soda was thrown at an officer, Riverside Police Lt. Chuck Griffitts said.

Griffitts said by phone that officers have regularly asked Occupy members to remove their tents, and protesters have been cooperative in the past. But not Sunday.

Rondilone, who was injured but not arrested, said none of the protestors assaulted or attempted to assault the officers.

“We were resisting,” Rondilone said. “But nobody there had a weapon or anything that could be construed as a weapon. All the videos that we have show every person forming a human chain.”

“We're watching you”

Videos posted on the Web show officers walking into the small encampment begin to lift tarps and call out to people under shelters before protestors formed a human chain around some of the tents.

“They rushed to where I was standing first,” said Kaytlyn Ann Cruz, a single mom from Riverside. “They threw me on the ground. They hit me in the chest. I got back up and got back in there. They hit me in the face. They hit me in the chest with the billy club.”

Officers seemed to move toward where the women held hands in the human chain said Kathryn Stevenson, a teacher at Moreno Valley College.

“They went after the two women who they thought they could move,” she said. “They said, 'would you please move?' They said no they wouldn’t. Then they (police) moved in.”

“It was pretty violent,” Stevenson said. “We saw one guy who had eight cops on him. I don’t know why. He wasn’t resisting. He was on his face. I was yelling ‘We’re watching you.’ ”

“I was shocked,” she said. “(Police) would wake us up every morning. They wake us up with a ‘Good morning. Time to take the tents down.’ ”

Occupy Group Meeting

The raid coincided with a combined meeting of several Occupy groups.

Representatives from Redlands, Fontana, Victorville, Colton and Riverside met near the Riverside encampment to organize a unified event for the entire region.

“We had decided we were going to help Occupy San Bernardino launch and the group said 'hey, why don’t we make that a group event,'” said Keith Jackson, committee member with Occupy Redlands.

About five minutes after the decision was made, he said police arrived at the scene.

“At first it was five or six, then it was 10,” Jackson said. “Then some 20, 30, 40, 50.”

“Nobody Fought Back”

There were city workers who took down the tents. And throughout, Jackson said, the Riverside protestors remained peaceful. A few of the Occupy Redlands members joined the human chain. Jackson monitored the unfolding situation carefully to make sure no one got hurt.

“There wasn’t any violence toward the police or anything provocative toward the police,” he said. “They were forcibly being removed from the human chain. Nobody fought back. As far as I could tell, and I got within a foot of the events to document that no one got hurt, they were peacefully resisting.”

“We’re concerned that this was not handled in the peaceful orchestrated way that we were led to believe it would be handled,” said Elizabeth Aamot, an Occupy Riverside member. “We anticipated that they would tear our camp down, but we thought they would be more patient and arrest people in a more orderly manner.”

No one ever wanted to show aggression. And no one assumed there would not be arrests, she said.

Her boyfriend Brian, father of her infant child, was among the arrested. Brian is vocal about having a forum that would allow people to speak out against injustices, Aamot said. He also happens to be a stocky man.

Aamot fears that his size, along with his fierce dedication to his personal convictions, made him a target for police.

She is not giving up and is returning to the Main Street encampment, she said. “They are not going to keep me away. They are going to have to build a wall around it,” she said. “As soon as Brian is out, he and I are going right back to that spot.”