Three Occupy Arrestees Confronted by Deputy Chief of Police in Santa Cruz
Channel: Alex Darocy
Date: 2012-02-17

From the solidarity demonstration at Wells Fargo Bank (located at 74 River Street) on February 15, 2012 supporting the arrestees associated with the 75 River Street empty bank occupation:

As soon as he arrived at the peaceful sidewalk demonstration and exited the patrol vehicle, Steve Clark, a deputy chief at the Santa Cruz Police Department, immediately walked right up to Brent Adams (who has extensively video documented Occupy Santa Cruz) and threatened to add an additional criminal charge to those that he already faces (including felonies) in connection to the 75 River Street vacant bank occupation court case (the charges were announced and warrants were issued on February 7). So far 11 people have been charged in association with the December 2011 occupation, and all are charged with felonies. A good majority of the group of those charged are journalists. Another person charged in the occupation and depicted in this video is homeless advocate and journalist, Robert Norse. Deputy Chief Clark accused Norse of lies about him on his website. Norse asked him to name the lies, and Clark was not able to.

My name is Alex Darocy, and I am a photographer who has taken thousands of photos of Occupy Santa Cruz and published many. I am also one of those charged. As soon as Clark saw me videotaping him he said, "How are you, Alex. How's your warrant, did you get that taken care of?" This was presumably an implied dig, as I was one of the four people who tried to get down to court and get a court date when I first found out, but I couldn't because very shortly after the warrants were issued for all 11 people at once, the authorities arrived at my home and arrested me. The rest of the exchange with Clark went like this:

Clark - "How are you, Alex. How's your warrant, did you get that taken care of?"
Me - "Why wouldn't you give me your name that evening, I asked for your name, deputy chief, the evening of November 9th., Why wouldn't you give me your name? I gave you my name. I told you I was with the press outlet that I am with, You wouldn't give me your name, deputy chief. Is that how a deputy chief should act?"
Clark - "Yeah, yep."

Later, Clark threatened to add to my case the same additional charges that he had also threatened Brent Adams with earlier. Brent and I repeatedly ask him what the charge could possibly be, and Clark named off a new, previously unheard of (to both of us) charge.

Video by Alex Darocy. Creative Commons Licence.