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Student protests, May-December 1971
1971-05-13 Daily Iowa Letters: ""Police and Protests"" Page 5
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Patrolmen were con icepersons had been eact to the crowd in in the Tribune was reader from viewinng rry Eckholt tells us, oughout the night bu e University of Iowa ounted many students he downtown section ven after they began the crowd until the unted? Where were nting the demonstra challenging them to lums, etc...? t page, because it is y Iowan has done its his week's demonstra ir great control their nt-orientated newspaper r news stories) about the indiscriminate ar they existed in a time rs anyday. - John Camp -Leona Durham ction acf police agents often hese bombings to keep ng a good cause ess and the university ad lies about SDS in workers and students th us in fighting the ty hurts working peo and the layoffs of cam Workers and students gtining university war es should join with us! Bruce Johnson, For SDS police violence in the past few days is that the police have not been adequately controlled. The police chief, the sheriff, their immediate subordinated have NOT been doing their job. Sheriff Schneider's understandable, albeit juvenile anger at a demonstrator' attempt to steal his helmet last week was no excuse for him to order a charge and lead it. This policeman's actions, derived from fear and rage, show no qualification for heading a law enforcement agency. These are bush league tactics : the cop who used them wouldn't last out his rookie year in a larger city where his superiors were not his social intimates. City government has not been responsible either, Mayor Loren Hickerson's statement to the Daily Iowan Monday in essence. I say to city officials and police. "I understand your frustration and your very human weariness, but you are grown men and you have jobs to do. It would be better for us all if you did them right." Many police have, no doubt, overstepped their bounds. They are adults and should be held accountable for their actions. So should demonstrators be held accountable. Their own rage and frustration at the seeming ineffectuality of six years of protest against the war is justifiable. When I was a cop I collected a number of sneers from my co-workers for taking part in various demonstrations against the war. I have since stopped demonstrating because I think it is a futile activity. I am not willing to go be want the best, most humane men to be policemen. But by taking the attitude toward the police that you do, you will never have them. You will drive the good men out, the men who respect the things that you respect. They won't be able to stand up to your hatred. The only men who will stray are those who like to hate who like to combat with an "enemy" (how many of YOU does this description fit?) You had better hope that a few responsible men with more courage than most of us, will remain. In Life magazine last year, a young cop on a beat in Haight-Ashubry said "So if I'm around (the precinct) and some (other) cop who doesn't know my views starts kicking a Negro's ass another cop will tell him to lay off. I've kept cops To the Editor: I wish to ask a favor of the Iowa City law enforcement. Before the next rally, please pass out maps showing streets to follow, sidewalks to take, places of business to enter. etc... when you give the word to clear the streets. Monday, there were nightsticks on three sides of me and buildings behind. Not being able to levitate, I got clubbed (Practice your aim boys he also hit the parking meter!) Get your shit together, people, like you are. Maybe one night you'll meet Robert Ray in a riot helmet. (He's getting worried!) Tom Dokin 411 2nd Ave. Place, Apt 24 Coralville ... demonstrations and the DI To the Editor: There is a statement in Durham and May's editorial, "Liberty or Death" which has a ring of truth to it : Until violence against people can be distinguished from destruction of property, etc., there will be no peace in this country. There certainly is not going to be peace in this country, because America is launched on another War to End All Wars and this time it is on the home front. As Judy Collins said, the only way to have peace if to have it. Peace is or it is not. And as long as the Richard Nixons and Lyndon Johnsons justify violence as a defense against the "Red Sea" and as long as the Leona Durhams and Lowell Mays justify violence as a defense against "predacious merchants and dehumanizing universities" we will not have peace. If you want peace, you are peaceful. If you want reason, you are rational. The trouble is, bot everybody wants it or seeks it the only way it can be had. So there you are in your rational, non violent glory, affirming life, peace and reason; and inevitably you get beat to death by your fellow human being with their bricks, rocks, napalm, billy clubs, judge's gavels, and journalist's pens. You haven't got a snowball's chance in hell: your rules, like Engel's and Boyd's are peace and reason; and not enough people will play by those rules. Some people are too busy telling you that you have your head in the clouds. They are too busy sticking THEIR heads up their asses so they can justify thee insecure and selfish antics of a bunch of hell-raising brats, whether those brats are the Joint Chiefs and their economic bedfellows or a group of pseudo anti-war demonstrators. Keep up the good work, Durham and May. You are beginning to rival only Richard Nixon in your solicitous ability to justify violence that meets your ends. Right on Christian Soldiers in your hold god-damn wars - here, abroad, and everywhere. Julie. I. Wlach , A4 To the Editor: I was a bystander during the window smashing spree that occurred May 5. When the crowd first marched to Iowa Book and Supply, student monitors, identified by white arm bands, stood in front of the windows with arms raised in an effort to keep the demonstrators from throwing rocks. One monitor was led away with head injuries. To avoid injury during the second raid, they sat in a single line around the store on the curbing. When the demonstrators approached, the monitors stood to discourage them and kept the crowd from completely destroying the windows. Then the police arrived and took control. I was pleased to see among the monitors many student senators and Ted Politis, president of the student body. Here were students organized to calm the demonstrators and stop the violent destruction to property. I do not understand why the Daily Iowan failed to report this role played by our student government. Instead it gave ample coverage to a hostile crowd it estimated numbering 1,000 at its peak. The Des Moines Register reported the crowd to be not more than 300 at any time. I think the Daily Iowan had poor coverage for the actual situation, giving student readers, many of which depend mainly on this student publication for news, a false and incomplete picture of this important incident. Students ! Read other papers too. Sarah Annis, A2 To the Editor: To Frank F Hash, Publisher On Thursday, May 6 and Friday May 7 the "wonderfully accurate" and "objective" Daily Iowan scored another triumph of news reporting. In the main articles written about the campus disturbances, the phrase "police attack" was used consistently. This objectivity is ridiculous. The people who were raiding the town and university were attackers, not the police. The police were protecting property and were themselves attacked and stoned by demonstrators. I can find little sympathy for people who run through the city breaking windows and then complain about being attacked by peace officers. While I myself am certainly morally opposed to the war in Indochina. I must agree with the position that peace in Indochina should not be brought about by war at home. Articles and so-called "news" reporting such as this only inflame and polarize thee people on the campus. John D. Dooley Director of Parking Lot Operations EDITOR'S NOTE: Copies of this letter were sent by the author to all faculty members of Student Publications Board Inc. No student members of the board received copies. Stop your evil ways you hypocrites and Protest/Letters ...' DI May 13, 1971 5 (of 5)
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Patrolmen were con icepersons had been eact to the crowd in in the Tribune was reader from viewinng rry Eckholt tells us, oughout the night bu e University of Iowa ounted many students he downtown section ven after they began the crowd until the unted? Where were nting the demonstra challenging them to lums, etc...? t page, because it is y Iowan has done its his week's demonstra ir great control their nt-orientated newspaper r news stories) about the indiscriminate ar they existed in a time rs anyday. - John Camp -Leona Durham ction acf police agents often hese bombings to keep ng a good cause ess and the university ad lies about SDS in workers and students th us in fighting the ty hurts working peo and the layoffs of cam Workers and students gtining university war es should join with us! Bruce Johnson, For SDS police violence in the past few days is that the police have not been adequately controlled. The police chief, the sheriff, their immediate subordinated have NOT been doing their job. Sheriff Schneider's understandable, albeit juvenile anger at a demonstrator' attempt to steal his helmet last week was no excuse for him to order a charge and lead it. This policeman's actions, derived from fear and rage, show no qualification for heading a law enforcement agency. These are bush league tactics : the cop who used them wouldn't last out his rookie year in a larger city where his superiors were not his social intimates. City government has not been responsible either, Mayor Loren Hickerson's statement to the Daily Iowan Monday in essence. I say to city officials and police. "I understand your frustration and your very human weariness, but you are grown men and you have jobs to do. It would be better for us all if you did them right." Many police have, no doubt, overstepped their bounds. They are adults and should be held accountable for their actions. So should demonstrators be held accountable. Their own rage and frustration at the seeming ineffectuality of six years of protest against the war is justifiable. When I was a cop I collected a number of sneers from my co-workers for taking part in various demonstrations against the war. I have since stopped demonstrating because I think it is a futile activity. I am not willing to go be want the best, most humane men to be policemen. But by taking the attitude toward the police that you do, you will never have them. You will drive the good men out, the men who respect the things that you respect. They won't be able to stand up to your hatred. The only men who will stray are those who like to hate who like to combat with an "enemy" (how many of YOU does this description fit?) You had better hope that a few responsible men with more courage than most of us, will remain. In Life magazine last year, a young cop on a beat in Haight-Ashubry said "So if I'm around (the precinct) and some (other) cop who doesn't know my views starts kicking a Negro's ass another cop will tell him to lay off. I've kept cops To the Editor: I wish to ask a favor of the Iowa City law enforcement. Before the next rally, please pass out maps showing streets to follow, sidewalks to take, places of business to enter. etc... when you give the word to clear the streets. Monday, there were nightsticks on three sides of me and buildings behind. Not being able to levitate, I got clubbed (Practice your aim boys he also hit the parking meter!) Get your shit together, people, like you are. Maybe one night you'll meet Robert Ray in a riot helmet. (He's getting worried!) Tom Dokin 411 2nd Ave. Place, Apt 24 Coralville ... demonstrations and the DI To the Editor: There is a statement in Durham and May's editorial, "Liberty or Death" which has a ring of truth to it : Until violence against people can be distinguished from destruction of property, etc., there will be no peace in this country. There certainly is not going to be peace in this country, because America is launched on another War to End All Wars and this time it is on the home front. As Judy Collins said, the only way to have peace if to have it. Peace is or it is not. And as long as the Richard Nixons and Lyndon Johnsons justify violence as a defense against the "Red Sea" and as long as the Leona Durhams and Lowell Mays justify violence as a defense against "predacious merchants and dehumanizing universities" we will not have peace. If you want peace, you are peaceful. If you want reason, you are rational. The trouble is, bot everybody wants it or seeks it the only way it can be had. So there you are in your rational, non violent glory, affirming life, peace and reason; and inevitably you get beat to death by your fellow human being with their bricks, rocks, napalm, billy clubs, judge's gavels, and journalist's pens. You haven't got a snowball's chance in hell: your rules, like Engel's and Boyd's are peace and reason; and not enough people will play by those rules. Some people are too busy telling you that you have your head in the clouds. They are too busy sticking THEIR heads up their asses so they can justify thee insecure and selfish antics of a bunch of hell-raising brats, whether those brats are the Joint Chiefs and their economic bedfellows or a group of pseudo anti-war demonstrators. Keep up the good work, Durham and May. You are beginning to rival only Richard Nixon in your solicitous ability to justify violence that meets your ends. Right on Christian Soldiers in your hold god-damn wars - here, abroad, and everywhere. Julie. I. Wlach , A4 To the Editor: I was a bystander during the window smashing spree that occurred May 5. When the crowd first marched to Iowa Book and Supply, student monitors, identified by white arm bands, stood in front of the windows with arms raised in an effort to keep the demonstrators from throwing rocks. One monitor was led away with head injuries. To avoid injury during the second raid, they sat in a single line around the store on the curbing. When the demonstrators approached, the monitors stood to discourage them and kept the crowd from completely destroying the windows. Then the police arrived and took control. I was pleased to see among the monitors many student senators and Ted Politis, president of the student body. Here were students organized to calm the demonstrators and stop the violent destruction to property. I do not understand why the Daily Iowan failed to report this role played by our student government. Instead it gave ample coverage to a hostile crowd it estimated numbering 1,000 at its peak. The Des Moines Register reported the crowd to be not more than 300 at any time. I think the Daily Iowan had poor coverage for the actual situation, giving student readers, many of which depend mainly on this student publication for news, a false and incomplete picture of this important incident. Students ! Read other papers too. Sarah Annis, A2 To the Editor: To Frank F Hash, Publisher On Thursday, May 6 and Friday May 7 the "wonderfully accurate" and "objective" Daily Iowan scored another triumph of news reporting. In the main articles written about the campus disturbances, the phrase "police attack" was used consistently. This objectivity is ridiculous. The people who were raiding the town and university were attackers, not the police. The police were protecting property and were themselves attacked and stoned by demonstrators. I can find little sympathy for people who run through the city breaking windows and then complain about being attacked by peace officers. While I myself am certainly morally opposed to the war in Indochina. I must agree with the position that peace in Indochina should not be brought about by war at home. Articles and so-called "news" reporting such as this only inflame and polarize thee people on the campus. John D. Dooley Director of Parking Lot Operations EDITOR'S NOTE: Copies of this letter were sent by the author to all faculty members of Student Publications Board Inc. No student members of the board received copies. Stop your evil ways you hypocrites and Protest/Letters ...' DI May 13, 1971 5 (of 5)
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