from the S.F. Weekly, 8/17/94, p. 8

State: Twenty activists to stand trial
CHP SPIED ON UC STUDENT PROTESTERS

Julie Browne remembers seeing Earl Boyd sitting in the student lounge at 
UC Santa Cruz, attending a meeting students had called to plan a 
demonstration over a $236 million expansion of nearby Soledad Prison. She 
also remembers thinking Boyd looked a little old to be a student, but 
assumed he was an administrator who shared their anger that the state 
budget was providing as moch money for prisons as schools.

It never crossed her mind, Browne says, that Boyd was an undercover 
California Highway Patrol officer who was there to spy on them.

"When it was my turn to give information, I told them that my name was 
Earl and I was a college student," Boyd said in his police report. "I 
continued by telling them that I was upset with the fee hikes every 
semester, and that it wasn't right to be building new prisons in the state."

Three days later, on May 18, Browne and 54 others were arrested during a 
rally outside the prison. Most were sentenced to 40 hours community 
service after pleading guilty to blocking a highway and failing to 
disperse. But 20 have opted for trial in response to what they call the 
CHP's "racism" in charging three students-- including a black and a 
Latino-- with battery and resisting arrest. "They just sat on the road 
like everybody else," said Browne. "It could've been any of us that they 
charged."

The group of 120 protesters, which also included members of San 
Francisco's ACT-UP, were met outside Soledad by the prison  riot squad, 
CHP officers, Monterrey County sherrifs and local police officers-- all 
because, students say, Boyd exxagerated the threat of violence.

Salinas Municipal Judge Robert Moody, meanwhile, has denied the request 
of several students for a public defender. "The judge said that if we can 
come up with the school tuition every year, then we should be able to 
afford an attorney," said Browne. "This is exactly what we were 
protesting-- taking money from education to support the criminal-justice 
system."

Although the students received early support from prominent activists 
like Angela Davis, now a professor on the campus, it's the undercover 
presence of Boyd which has most angered faculty. "We are very concerned 
that this infiltration will create a chilling effect on the willingness 
of students to express their First Amendment rights," 14 professors wrote 
in a letter to the judge.

Student Rhea Laughlin said the protesters are mostly concerned about 
those facing battery charges. "We have clearly said, `Drop the more 
serious charges against the three students and the rest of us will plead 
guilty," she said.

--Peter Hegarty

*****end of article*****