Athens, OH: Report on Two Recent Actions

The following report and photos was sent to It’s Going Down anonymously. We reprint it below. 

Anarchists and other anti-authoritarians in Athens, Ohio dropped a banner just before noon this morning in solidarity with Stephon Clark who was murdered by the Sacramento PD on March 18th. The banner unraveled atop the Baker University Center – the site of mass community arrests last February – for all incoming foot traffic to see. While the banner only lasted a short time before a “wanna-be cop” took it down, the proprietors feel they got their message across. One was quoted as saying, “From Athens to Sacramento, solidarity to those who seek justice and vengeance for Stephon Clark.”

This banner drop also came just over a week after students disrupted a discussion of the newly proposed “protest ban” at Ohio University. The ban seeks to criminalize students and community members who choose to demonstrate on university property, as many other universities have been proposing over the course of the past few years. The demonstrators, who don’t put any faith in the bureaucratic and hierarchical governing bodies of the school and city, decided it would be best to show up with their own agenda. They carried banners that read “We don’t need your permission, you can’t silence dissent”, and “Become Ungovernable.”

Source: Kelsey Boeing of The Post

Although some students and staff showed their support for the demonstrators, the heads of the meeting chose not to give them any acknowledgement. In fact, when the demonstrators called upon the Chief Andrew Powers of the OUPD to speak, he silently denied and kept his eyes fixed on the floor. As the meeting began to commence, the demonstrators exited while chanting “Cops and Klan go hand in hand, drop the fucking protest ban!”, while managing to take as many cookies as possible from the event.

From Athens, Ohio, we say solidarity to all those fighting against the oppressive nature of the powers that be. And as always, fuck the police!