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Who was arrested during latest protest at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo?

May 24, 2024

By KAREN VELIE

For the second time this year, a pro-Palestinian protest at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo led to multiple arrests. Officers arrested eight people during Thursday’s protest including four students, one professor and three people unrelated to the campus.

At 7:15 a.m., several callers reported a group of students blocking the California Boulevard entrance to Cal Poly, according to Matt Lazier, Cal Poly media relations director. Aided by SLO police officers and SLO County sheriff deputies, Cal Poly police officers arrived to find wooden barricades and three students chained together in the roadway. There were a total of 15 to 20 people involved in the protest.

“Police issued a dispersal order, and some of the protesters did not comply, which is what led to arrests being made,” Lazier said.

Of those arrested, six were booked in the San Luis Obispo County Jail while two were arrested, cited and released.

Jay Erker

  • Jay Erker, 44, lecturer in the chemistry & biochemistry department, charged with obstructing an officer
  • Mohamed Cheour, 25, charged with resisting arrest, obstructing the free movement of a person and two felonies related to removing a person from police custody
  • Alejandro Bupara, 29, charged with remaining at an unlawful assembly after an order to disperse
  • Jade Pinney, 28, charged with remaining at an unlawful assembly after order to disperse
  • Theodore Lee, 21, charged with obstructing the free movement of a person
  • Alexis Barksdale, 24, charged with obstructing the free movement of a person
  • Barbara Wildman, charged with obstructing a roadway
  • Henry Miller, charged with obstructing a roadway

The protestors demands included divest from any companies profiting from the war, drop all charges against student protestors and support a ceasefire in Gaza.

“Regarding divestment, Cal Poly does not have a place in boycotting/divesting from certain countries. International boycotts and divestment are inherently political and often involve complex and historic geopolitical issues,” according to Lazier. “The role of the university is to serve as a content-neutral space for the free exchange of ideas, thoughts and discourse; the university is not a political body, and its role is not to create public policy and foreign affairs strategies.”

Furthermore, Cal Poly administration does not have the ability to drop charges filed by the SLO County District Attorney’s Office against protesters.

Bupara is already facing six misdemeanor charges for battery of a peace officer related to a pro-Palestinian protest at Cal Poly on Jan. 23 in which eight people were arrested. He has a pre-trial conference on the battery charges scheduled for July 11.

Also arrested at the Jan. 23 protest, Cal Poly professor Shanae Aurora Martínez, 38, is charged with battery of a peace officer. She is scheduled for a further arraignment regarding the battery charge on July 11.

Martínez, an assistant professor of English specializing in Indigenous literatures, is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing on June 10 regarding a driving under the influence charge.

 


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I hope the DA’s office throws the book at anyone who continually abuses the rights of others under the guise of a protest. Do they still require critical thinking to graduate? Do these pro-Palestinian activist really think the best way to promote their view is to violate the law and stomp on the rights of others? And who is vetting staff at Cal Poly?


41

How about they get charged full allocated rate cost recovery for the officers and all other associated personnel including employee and student time lost?


45

“Indigenous literatures”. So much for Poly being a solid technical university. They even co-opted the name to designate a useless hippy school “Cal Poly”. The LA Times had an article about the lack of protests at at Cal State Los Angeles, not an advantaged school. A student interviewed said “I have classes, I have a job.”


39

These students do not understand process in their own country. Demanding the school drop charges demonstrates their ignorance. But they claim to know all the issues in another country and then use that to bully others.

.

If you have a bad day at work, do you come home and hit your child. So these students are blocking the free movement of other people because they are not getting their ridiculous demands met. Regardless of your views, protest is a right. But you do not have a right to block roadways and harass others.


63

Must be nice, Jay, to never have to grow up.


17

Hire a crazy person to teach and you will get uneducated crazy students….


64

New era, a new set of useful idiots.


50

What business does any university have investing in weapons manufacturing? I found their official reply to be evasive and lacking in accountability. How does one remain neutral whilst profiting from manufacturing weapons being used by one side against the other, especially for the purpose of genocide?


If it were my children being educated there, I would hope that they were being inspired to do more than sit around theorizing when something like that was taking place.


-104

I may have set a record here. I’m a bit surprised so many on this site are totally approving of genocide. Or is it just such a plump opportunity to “bash the libs” that you don’t care those tens of thousands, mostly women and children, are being slaughtered with our weapons, on our dime, for the actions of a terrorist group?


I also wonder how many claim to be “Christians” and “Right to Life” types whilst holding wholesale murder of innocents in such high regard they are willing to finance it? Just thinking in print here.


But if it is a handful of people protesting that situation that is ruining your day, it’s America, so you have the right to say so. Also wondering how many would be eager to be so ugly, were they forced to use their real names to do it.


-3

The time has come for gutless Armstrong to send a message and relieve Martinez and Erker of their duties and expel Bupara.


92

I wonder if there are any anomalies in grades given to Jewish students from these professors. I bet lawyers are wondering that too.


47

Given the ages listed, it sounds like at least some were not students.


And the lecturer will of course keep his job. Hell, he might even be given tenure!


65
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