Student protesters upset by failed attempts to get arrested
by Gregg Wanciack

Lewis & Clark protesters were shocked last week when a downtown protest ended successfully and with no arrests. Approximately fifty students arrived downtown at the headquarters of the Amazonian Logging and Dam Corporation, housed in the former Pioneer Courthouse Square Starbucks, and conducted a chaotic hour-long melee which miraculously resulted in no arrests.

		Protesters gathered outside the former coffeehouse, waving signs and yelling at incoming personnel for their construction of dams in South America. The protesters confined their activities to verbal assault for nearly the entire altercation, but when a logger, showing uncharacteristic pride in his work, brought out a sample of a crushed orchid to display to the protesters, students were unable to restrain themselves.
LC students and other protestors attempt to get arrested at a Portland Demonstration. Although most students were upset that no arrests were made, some were actually happy that effective change had been made.

"You have destroyed the one thing that is good and sacred in this world!" shouted one unidentified student.

Students and employees of ALDC clashed in a blood bath that overflowed into the neighboring Nordstrom's, disrupting commerce and terrifying upper-class shoppers who had never encountered a member of the Hippie Movement, washed or otherwise.

Portland police were called when the combined might of the ALDC and Nordstrom's security proved inadequate to handle the crowd's fury.
"We arrived on the scene, but it didn't look all that serious. The LC kids were just letting off some stream, which is completely normal for their age," said Police Captain Mark Smith, the commanding officer on the scene.

"They've got some issues to work out, and exercise is a great way to relieve excess tension," said Linda Jones, a paramedic on the scene, called to attend to fainting Nordstrom's guests.

"It's a healthy thing to do," she continued.

The brawl ended without outside intervention, and some of the LC protesters accompanied the employees of the Amazonian Logging and Dam Corporation inside their headquarters. Inside, they met with CEO Jack Rogers to discuss environmental damage to the Amazon Basin. The meeting inside lasted only thirty minutes, but a press conference was immediately called by Rogers' company.

"I really feel that we made headway today. I was truly unaware of the destruction that results from our Capitalism-in-Action program," read Rogers in a prepared statement.

"I apologize to the indigenous, aboriginal peoples of wherever and native animals and plants for our damage, and hope that we can put this unfortunate miscommunication behind us," Rogers said.

Witnesses also noticed the peaceful reconciliation between a protestor and the logger who provoked the melee originally. The two hugged in the middle of Broadway, halting traffic in a soft, sunlit rain for at least two minutes.

Even though the protest ended on a positive note, with change ahead on the horizon for Amazonian Logging and Dam Corporation, not all participants were happy with the protest's outcome. "We weren't arrested," said Laresa Beck. "What's the fun of going to a protest if you're not arrested?"
These sentiments were also shared by Kristin Casper, who said that the lack of police intervention would discourage her from participating in any future protests.

"Those bloody loggers were asking for a good night in the jail, and the police obviously have no concept of how to protect innocent students from those thugs. We could have easily kicked their collective asses, but this still stands as a telling example of the kind of one-sided brutality that the Portland Police are so well known for," said Casper in a joint letter to SEED and the student media groups.

Future activities are planned to protest the excessive use of paper in advertisements in the Hawthorne District and the high number of busses used by Tri-Met in public transportation.