• Transcribe
  • Translate

Student protests, May-December 1971

1971-05-06 Iowa City Press-Citizen Article: ""Anti-War Rally Erupts Into Free-for-All Here"" Page 4

More information
  • digital collection
  • archival collection guide
  • transcription tips
 
Saving...
'Anti-War Rally Erupts..." P-C May 6, 1971 4(of 4) "Windows Broken, 26 arrested " Protest From Page 1A gets for the rocks, but, once most of the available glass was shattered, the handful of militants found a new target. The armed services recruiting office at 221 South Linn Street and the adjacent University CIT Credit Co., both lost their glass front doors before monitors turned the crowd away. The demonstrators then marched down College Street to Clinton Street, some tossing stones through the glass front of Things and Things and Things, at 130 South Clinton Street before they descended on the Iowa Book and Supply Store at 8 South Clinton. The monitor force quickly placed itself in front of the store's Windows, but were unable to prevent breakage there. The more militant faction of the crowd began a shouting debate with the monitors, calling them, "stooges, dupes and little pigs." Phillip G. Hubbard, university vice provost and dean of academic affairs, appeared and thanked the monitors for their efforts to prevent violence. Around 10 p.m. The group descended upon the Post Office at 28 South Linn Street and shattered most of the Windows on the west side of the building. A light rain began to fall, but failed to damped any destructive enthusiasm, and the crowd headed toward the Fieldhouse to attack the physical confines of the ROTC program. A rock through a window at Iowa State band and Trust Co. At Washington and Clinton marked the trail. After pausing briefly to tie up traffic at Burlington Street and Riverside Drive, the crowd - swelled by recruits from the men's dormitories - proceeded to the rear of the Fieldhouse and broke ROTC office windows. Two persons forced open a door to the building, but no one ventured inside - fearing such a move could result in police entrapment. Robert Engle, assistant to UI President Willard L. Boyd, watched as demonstrators tied bandanas around their faces to prevent identification and pelted the building with stones. "It's very sad," Engle said. "I didn't really think they would turn against the university." About 11 p.m., the siege of the ROTC complex ended, and the crown worked its way back the Pentacrest area, about half again stopping to delay Riveside drive traffics. Once back on campus, the students battled with rhetoric, not rocks, unti 37 Iowa City police, 20 Johnson County deputies and special deputies, 90 highway patrolmen, eight Croalville police and five Linn County Deputies arrived - riot equipped - at Iowa Avenue and Clinton Streets in three busses. "It is my duty to inform you that you are in violation of the law," Iowa City Police Chief Patrick J. McCarney told the crowd. "You have three minutes to remove yourself from the are of you will be arrested." Some ran. Some watched. Some thre rocks. Highway Patrol Cpt. Lyle Dickinson caught a large rock on his helmeted head, and Iowa CIty Police Sgts. Loren Teggatz and Donald Strand, Capt. John Ruppert, Patrolman Thomas P. Walden and Sheriff Maynard Schneider were also struck by rocks. Only Teggatz required hospital treatment for his shoulder wound. "Okay, boys, move up," the chief shouted, and the club-bearing police chased who ever remained in the are through the streets. The pursuit began in front of Iowa Book and Supply, and in the time it ended, protesters were being tackled a block from the Couthouse. The police regrouped and moved back towards town, stopping encounter to empty the Clinton Street bards. Some persons chased form the bars ere later arrested for being on the street. By 12:30 a.m., there was more traffic downtown a than on a normal Saturday afternoon. Sightseers lines the storefronts, and hordes of cars streamed through the rea to catch a glimpse of police leading those arrested to waiting bus-jails. As of this morning, 21 persons had been charged with disorderly conduct, one with intoxication, one with assisting escape form an officer, one with malicious injury to a building, one with assault with intent to commit great bodily harm and another with both and assault charge and a resisting arrest count. Bonds for those charged with disorderly conduct were set at $105, and the intoxication charge brought a bond of $20. Persons being held on other charges have not yet been arraigned. Preliminary hearings on all charges have been scheduled for May 14 at 8 a.m. City Manager Frand R. Smiley said this morning Cheif McCarney "was in charge" Wdensday night. Smiley said McCarney had been in touch with Highway Patrol Capt. Lyle Dickinson about brining in outside aid. Smiley said he finally called Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sellers to request reinforcements. After that, he continued, it was a matter of "waiting and waiting" for the patrol to arrive. "It seemed apparent that when they arrived on the scene the thing was over," Smiley noted. "The damage was done." McCarney said this morning his department had no plans to file charges against the driver of the Barney's D-X truck that drove through the crowd preceding on the rock attack on Barney's D-X station. "What could we prove? None of our officers saw it," the police chief said. "If some of the people who saw it happen wanton step forward, that's okay." McCarney said the incident was "under investigation." *** Police Action In Draft Issue Praised The Iowa CIty chapter of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom today commended "the restraint shown by Iowa City police" at the demonstration Wednesday morning at the Iowa CIty Post Office. A group that was protesting the draft demonstrated as a bus loaded men headed for draft physicals in Des Moines. Morin Constantino, a member of WILPF, said, "Police Chief Patrick McCarney and his men showed restraint and patience in dealing with what could have been a tense situation. "Our Group seeks to initiate and support genuine non-violent antiwar actions and feels that aimless violence serves no purpose. We believe that in any provocative situation those monitors and law enforcement people who work to prevent violence deserve commendation."
 
Campus Culture