Posted on 11/14/2007 1:23:03 PM PST by SmithL
Hill was also served with an injunction that carries a $1,000 fine, five days in jail or both if he goes back to the grove, a university spokesman said Tuesday.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Richard Keller ruled in late October that all tree sitters are trespassing and lodging illegally and must come down or face punishment.
Hill, 24, said it was the excitement about seeing his father, Carl Hill, down below the tree grove that led to the fall. "I thought I was hooking myself onto a traverse line," said Hill from his hospital bed at Highland Hospital on Tuesday. "My father was on the ground and I was excited and I hopped off and flew."
Hill called Sunday's 8:30 p.m. fall an "out of body experience."
"I feel like I watched myself float down," he said.
"I remember thinking, 'Oh (explicative)' and then I hit the ground," he added.
People have been living on wooden platforms in trees next to California Memorial Stadium at UC Berkeley since last December. They are protesting the university's plan to raze the trees and build a $125 million sports training facility there.
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., and a former professional lacrosse player for the Los Angeles Riptide, Hill said he came to the grove last December after doing old-growth forest protection work in Humboldt County.
He has been assisting with the tree sit since and has spent scores of days and nights living in a tree and doing ground support work, he said.
When the protest started the grove was open and tree sitters came and went at their leisure.
Tree sitters started using traverse lines to ferry food, water and people into and out of the grove after a chain-link fence was put up by the university as a safety precaution when the football season started in August. A second fence went up last week.
Three groups have sued UC Berkeley to try and stop construction of the sports training center because of safety and other concerns. The center is slated to be built near the stadium, which straddles the Hayward earthquake fault.
A trial for the three consolidated lawsuits was held before Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara Miller earlier this fall. A ruling in the case could come this week.
Hold my joint and watch this...
Very good point. However, even though construction is on hold while the lawsuit is being resolved, these people are trespassing, and have no right to be there.
So far all the Berkly Police have done is ask them nicely, if repeatedly, to come down.
Shoot them with pepper balls from air rifles on a regular basis until they come down, and then arrest them for trespassing, and fine each and every one of them. They are costing the university a lot of money with their little stunt, and they should pay for it.
12 year olds with pellet guns.
Moron thinks he's a bird. Was he a student? What was his major, creative lunacy?
I heard on the news about bags of feces and urine that have been falling out of those trees, but this is probably the largest one to fall yet...
Hey! I was nowhere near there!
Honest!!
Wait just a minute! They're using wood to build platforms for sitting in trees they're trying to save? That ain't right.
How about cranky old Viet Nam vets with shotguns using bean bag rounds. :)
I was hoping to read that dad was there to whoop his ass, but that didn’t happen.
Pfft. That would not be sporting.
(Do I really have to give the cite??) ((Hint: Python. Sheep.))
They also sawed the tops of the trees off to put those platforms on which will kill the trees anyway. Libs are only there for the symbolism.
Pray for W and Our Victorious Troops
Oh come on. The vets are old, the protesters are young.
Besides you can have a competition on how many times you can hit one as they slide down a traverse line. Of course if they forget to clip into the traverse line like the idiot in this article, they would get in less shots.
Shooting them while they lay injured on the ground would not be sporting.
If a stoned hippie falls out of a tree during protest with a bunch of other hippies on acid, does he still make a dull thud?
I mentioned it before... mention it again here... to get these folks to consistently "fall" out of the trees just unleash some hungry fire ants at the trees' base (we've got plenty of the little critters here in the Lone Star State that Cali can have... for free!).
Apparently she doesn’t.
And don’t call me Shirley!
“If a stoned hippie falls out of a tree during protest with a bunch of other hippies on acid, does he still make a dull thud?”
No Dude, he makes one of them, you know things kinda like.....What were we talking about?
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