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Student protests, May-December 1971
1971-05-13 Daily Iowa Letters: ""Police and Protests"" Page 1
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" Protest/Letters ..." 1 (of 5) The Daily Iowan OPINIONS PAGE 2 , THURSDAY, MAY 13, 1971, IOWA CITY, IOWA Editor, Leona Durham, Managing Editor, Amy Chapman, News Editor, Lowell May, City-University Editor, Willard Rawn, Editorial Page Editor, Cheryl Miller, Photography Editor, Diane Hypes, Fine Arts Editor, Valerie Kent, Sports Editor, John Richards, Associate News Editor, Mike McGrevey, Assoc. City-University Editor, Debbie Romine, Assoc, City-University Editor, Richard Rer Maar, Assoc. Photo Editor, Jan Williams The protest beat There are some people who apparently think the Daily Iowan is some kind of radical command post that we give the orders and the other campus reds scurry to carry them out. One person who apparently suspects this is Iowa's governor. Robert Ray whose office called the University of Iowa's public relations office yesterday to request copies of the Daily Iowan for the past two weeks. And the university didn't mail them didn't send them by bus, it dispatched a courier with the requested issues. But while Gov. Ray is reading those papers (and we'd like to know why he wasn't reading the paper all year - aren't students among his constituents?) we'd like to make some comparisons to our reporting and to that done by his hometown papers. An incredible amount of really crappy reporting had come out of this town in the last week and a lot of it has been going to the Des Moines Register ("the paper Iowa depends on") and the Des Moines Tribune. Not much of it has been coming from the Daily Iowan. Check this lead paragraph in Wednesday's Tribune story on the situation in Iowa City: "Well disciplined Iowa HIghway Patrolmen using tear gas sparingly, early Wednesday broke up a crowd of rowdy young people who ripped up stop lights and hurled bricks, bottles and rocks at officers" The entire paragraph is designed to make you see the situation with one eye to predispose you, before you go a step further, to see the Highway Patrol as "well disciplined persons" who benevolently use tear gas "sparingly" And of course, on the other side of the fence constructed by this graph are the "rowdy" students who "ripped up stop lights and hurled bricks, bottles and rocks at officers." We at the Daily Iowan recognize that Highway Patrolmen were considerably more restrained Tuesday night than other policepersons had been on other nights and that the Highway Patrol seemed to react to the crowd in a reasonably intelligent manner. But that lead paragraph in the Tribune was designed in such a way as to prevent the unthoughtful reader from viewing the situation with both eyes. In the Tribune on Tuesday. Tribune staff writer Larry Eckholt tells us "Weary law enforcement officers taunted and pelted throughout the night by anti-war demonstrators in downtown Iowa City and on the University of Iowa Campus, chased some protesters into dormitories and routed many students from their rooms with tear gas early Tuesday." Those "weary" law enforcement officers had cleared the downtown section by 11 p.m. hadn't been pelted by rocks or anything else even after they began making arrests near campus security Monday night ... the crowd until the police charged had been pretty peaceful in fact. And taunted? Where were you Larry when Police Chief Patrick McCarnet was taunting demonstrators at Hillcrest with a bullhorn doing everything but challenging them to come out and fight like men? Home in bed, with sugarplums etc...? But, because all newspapers editorialize on the front page, because it is impossible not to editorialize on the front page, the Daily Iowan has done its share. For example most papers have carried stories of this week's demonstrations from the perspective of the police emphasizing their great control their Letters: p To the Editor: The recent civil disorders in Iowa City with their attendant evidence of excessive use of force by police, prompt me to write this letter. While an undergraduate in Portland, Ore., I spent almost three years as a patrolman with the Portland Police Bureau - two years in prowl car work and the remainder organizing a Police-Community Relations Unit. I recently finished my Master of Fine Arts degree in the Writers Workshop. I hope the above will not be construed as advertisements for myself, but merely as a process of establishing, what will no doubt seem to some, rather muddled credentials. So be it. While a police officer I participated in two race riots, each of which continued sporadically for several days. During that time my co-workers and myself were assigned to work 12 hours on and 12 off. Actually we worked 15 or 16 hours per shift. The riots consisted of fire bombings, false box alarms, thrown rocks and bottles, and reports (never confirmed) of sniper fire. All this inspired a good deal of stress and fear in myself and the other police. But, though I wrestled, subdued, and arrested several persons during both these riots . I made certain those I arrested had broken the law (and not merely the jaywalking ordinance). Also though few of the people I arrested submitted without physical resistance. I never found it necessary to strike them with my hand or a nightstick ( and I am not strong, 5-10, 150 lbs) Our local accounts of excessive police roughness, though I have only read or seen accounts of them in the media, seem to me from my own experience in these matters to be probably true. Also from personal experience I know that police, even in a stress-filled situation, will not become violent if in doing so they have to fear discipline from their superiors. The main reason for police violence in the past few days is that the police have not adequately controlled. The police chief, the sheriff. their immediate subordinates have NOT been doing their job, Sheriff Schneider's understandable, albeit juvenile, anger at a demonstrator's 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. night that the streets of all police themsel situation" is land, for the p bility would b precipitate an police bureau's mayor Hicke city manager, legal charge similar official where. I can they must be that part of th terested only if they are stand up to only they are justice is done is not done force to effec rough up a m out of a theatr onstration. If I found latter position means at my from this es Of course I court, because ed atmosphere would find my Intent to Do the court would If Judge Th to the effect community is a group more family, then and irrespons of this nature etical function contemptible only demonst availability of in his court. In essence, police, " I un and your ve you are grown do. It would did them righ Many police ped their bou should be hel tions. So sho accountable. tion at the se years of prote fiable. When number if s for taking par against the w demonstrating tile activity. .... demon To the Editor: death by your
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" Protest/Letters ..." 1 (of 5) The Daily Iowan OPINIONS PAGE 2 , THURSDAY, MAY 13, 1971, IOWA CITY, IOWA Editor, Leona Durham, Managing Editor, Amy Chapman, News Editor, Lowell May, City-University Editor, Willard Rawn, Editorial Page Editor, Cheryl Miller, Photography Editor, Diane Hypes, Fine Arts Editor, Valerie Kent, Sports Editor, John Richards, Associate News Editor, Mike McGrevey, Assoc. City-University Editor, Debbie Romine, Assoc, City-University Editor, Richard Rer Maar, Assoc. Photo Editor, Jan Williams The protest beat There are some people who apparently think the Daily Iowan is some kind of radical command post that we give the orders and the other campus reds scurry to carry them out. One person who apparently suspects this is Iowa's governor. Robert Ray whose office called the University of Iowa's public relations office yesterday to request copies of the Daily Iowan for the past two weeks. And the university didn't mail them didn't send them by bus, it dispatched a courier with the requested issues. But while Gov. Ray is reading those papers (and we'd like to know why he wasn't reading the paper all year - aren't students among his constituents?) we'd like to make some comparisons to our reporting and to that done by his hometown papers. An incredible amount of really crappy reporting had come out of this town in the last week and a lot of it has been going to the Des Moines Register ("the paper Iowa depends on") and the Des Moines Tribune. Not much of it has been coming from the Daily Iowan. Check this lead paragraph in Wednesday's Tribune story on the situation in Iowa City: "Well disciplined Iowa HIghway Patrolmen using tear gas sparingly, early Wednesday broke up a crowd of rowdy young people who ripped up stop lights and hurled bricks, bottles and rocks at officers" The entire paragraph is designed to make you see the situation with one eye to predispose you, before you go a step further, to see the Highway Patrol as "well disciplined persons" who benevolently use tear gas "sparingly" And of course, on the other side of the fence constructed by this graph are the "rowdy" students who "ripped up stop lights and hurled bricks, bottles and rocks at officers." We at the Daily Iowan recognize that Highway Patrolmen were considerably more restrained Tuesday night than other policepersons had been on other nights and that the Highway Patrol seemed to react to the crowd in a reasonably intelligent manner. But that lead paragraph in the Tribune was designed in such a way as to prevent the unthoughtful reader from viewing the situation with both eyes. In the Tribune on Tuesday. Tribune staff writer Larry Eckholt tells us "Weary law enforcement officers taunted and pelted throughout the night by anti-war demonstrators in downtown Iowa City and on the University of Iowa Campus, chased some protesters into dormitories and routed many students from their rooms with tear gas early Tuesday." Those "weary" law enforcement officers had cleared the downtown section by 11 p.m. hadn't been pelted by rocks or anything else even after they began making arrests near campus security Monday night ... the crowd until the police charged had been pretty peaceful in fact. And taunted? Where were you Larry when Police Chief Patrick McCarnet was taunting demonstrators at Hillcrest with a bullhorn doing everything but challenging them to come out and fight like men? Home in bed, with sugarplums etc...? But, because all newspapers editorialize on the front page, because it is impossible not to editorialize on the front page, the Daily Iowan has done its share. For example most papers have carried stories of this week's demonstrations from the perspective of the police emphasizing their great control their Letters: p To the Editor: The recent civil disorders in Iowa City with their attendant evidence of excessive use of force by police, prompt me to write this letter. While an undergraduate in Portland, Ore., I spent almost three years as a patrolman with the Portland Police Bureau - two years in prowl car work and the remainder organizing a Police-Community Relations Unit. I recently finished my Master of Fine Arts degree in the Writers Workshop. I hope the above will not be construed as advertisements for myself, but merely as a process of establishing, what will no doubt seem to some, rather muddled credentials. So be it. While a police officer I participated in two race riots, each of which continued sporadically for several days. During that time my co-workers and myself were assigned to work 12 hours on and 12 off. Actually we worked 15 or 16 hours per shift. The riots consisted of fire bombings, false box alarms, thrown rocks and bottles, and reports (never confirmed) of sniper fire. All this inspired a good deal of stress and fear in myself and the other police. But, though I wrestled, subdued, and arrested several persons during both these riots . I made certain those I arrested had broken the law (and not merely the jaywalking ordinance). Also though few of the people I arrested submitted without physical resistance. I never found it necessary to strike them with my hand or a nightstick ( and I am not strong, 5-10, 150 lbs) Our local accounts of excessive police roughness, though I have only read or seen accounts of them in the media, seem to me from my own experience in these matters to be probably true. Also from personal experience I know that police, even in a stress-filled situation, will not become violent if in doing so they have to fear discipline from their superiors. The main reason for police violence in the past few days is that the police have not adequately controlled. The police chief, the sheriff. their immediate subordinates have NOT been doing their job, Sheriff Schneider's understandable, albeit juvenile, anger at a demonstrator's 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. night that the streets of all police themsel situation" is land, for the p bility would b precipitate an police bureau's mayor Hicke city manager, legal charge similar official where. I can they must be that part of th terested only if they are stand up to only they are justice is done is not done force to effec rough up a m out of a theatr onstration. If I found latter position means at my from this es Of course I court, because ed atmosphere would find my Intent to Do the court would If Judge Th to the effect community is a group more family, then and irrespons of this nature etical function contemptible only demonst availability of in his court. In essence, police, " I un and your ve you are grown do. It would did them righ Many police ped their bou should be hel tions. So sho accountable. tion at the se years of prote fiable. When number if s for taking par against the w demonstrating tile activity. .... demon To the Editor: death by your
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