October 22nd at UH-Manoa

It was hard to be on the University of Hawai`i-Manoa Campus on Tuesday, October 22^nd and not know that Tuesday was the day to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.   Large banners had been hanging from a central campus building for a week.   Posters had been appearing on bulletin boards for several weeks.  On October 22nd about 30 lawn signs with facts about the prison system lined sidewalks and not-to-be missed displays of photos of victims of police murders were posted in four central locations.   A small crew passed out leaflets, armbands and chalk on the main mall for three hours and at noon a small but loud and energetic march demanding Justice for Kollin Elderts wound through campus.    When the campus security police confronted a young student leading the march and told her she was disturbing classes and was facing arrest she righteously responded:    “This is a protest.  It should disturb students” and refused to back down.   Since the march had reached the endpoint the guard backed down and she wasn’t arrested.   

Kollin Elderts was a 23-year old Hawaiian man who was murdered in cold blood by a U.S. State Department Agent at McDonald’s in Waikiki during the 2011 APEC Conference in Honolulu.   The trial of Special Agent Deedy was held in July-August 2013 and ended with a hung jury.  He will be retried next year and activists are fighting to continue to demand justice for Kollin.  

About 650 leaflets were distributed and about 50 students put on black armbands.  Some took chalk to write their own messages, and throughout the day people stopped by the photo displays to read about the people who had been murdered by the police.  Some shook their heads in disbelief; some said they just felt sad and some were angry.    Some shared stories about their own experiences.   

As the day ended we summed it up saying:  “This just shows what a really small number of people can do.”    For a day thousands of students , faculty and staff were forced to wake up to the reality of police brutality and the horror of U.S. prisons.  New contacts were several students who want to be involved in the next action.    Following are a few photos: