Police Cut off Willits Protester from Food and Water

Crowd of supporters marches onto wetlands destruction site to resupply Red-Tailed Hawk, who has run out of food.

Crowd of supporters marches onto wetlands destruction site to resupply Red-Tailed Hawk, who has run out of food.

23rd June 2013, This inci­dent occurred on the third day that Red-Tailed Hawk has been perched on a stitch­er, block­ing Willits bypass con­struc­tion and pro­tect­ing crit­i­cal wet­lands.

Crowd of sup­port­ers march­es onto wet­lands destruc­tion site to resup­ply Red-Tailed Hawk, who has run out of food.

Sat­ur­day evening around 45 sup­port­ers of Red-Tailed Hawk’s occu­pa­tion of a wick drain “stitch­ing machine” con­verged on the site in what was pre­cious wet­lands in the path of Cal­Trans’ free­way project. Sup­port­ers walked onto the site unop­posed until they reached CHP squad cars, when two offi­cers emerged and tried to call a halt to the march. Sup­port­ers from Willits, Uki­ah and beyond pro­ceed­ed on the the stitch­er in which Red-Tailed Hawk is perched. When he low­ered a sup­ply rope, they tried to attach bun­dles of food and water. CHP offi­cers repelled the attempt three times, cut­ting the rope in the process.

With press on hand pro­tes­tors qui­et­ly sat and rea­soned with the offi­cers to allow resup­ply to Red-Tailed Hawk, who has no food and very lit­tle water left. The offi­cers refused and refused as well to reveal whether they were under orders to starve him until he descends.

 

Police prevented supplies from being sent up to Red-Tailed Hawk.

Police forcibly pre­vent­ed sup­port­ers from send­ing food and water up to Red-Tailed Hawk.

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..and then cut his sup­ply line.

When CHP rein­force­ments arrived, Sgt A. Mesa ordered pro­test­ers to leave the site and imme­di­ate­ly grabbed Sara Grusky as she was com­ply­ing with the order. Her daugh­ter Thea Grusky-Foley and Nao­mi Wag­n­er allowed them­selves to be arrest­ed in sol­i­dar­i­ty. Matt Cald­well, who had attempt­ed to attach buck­ets to the line, was also arrest­ed.

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The evening end­ed at Willits Police Sta­tion, where Sara and Thea, who had walked away after being hand­cuffed, talked by phone to press and Sher­iff Tom All­man amidst a crowd of sup­port­ers. They sur­ren­dered to an angry Sgt. Mesa after call­ing in their where­abouts to the CHP.

All four arrestees are cur­rent­ly at Men­do­ci­no Coun­ty Jail, await­ing book­ing.  Red-Tailed Hawk is still with­out water and food and needs all the sup­port we can give him.