Postscript to People's Park

After years of trouble with Berkeley's radicals, the Alameda County sheriff's deputies were in an ugly mood last May. At issue was "People's Park," a vacant lot owned by the University of California and taken over by a band of students and hippies to occupy and beautify for their own use. After the university ousted the squatters and fenced the lot, inevitably a dissenting march was mounted. When the protesters approached People's Park, the police were ready and waiting.

During the ensuing three-hour battle, a shotgun blast hit James Rector, 25, an unemployed carpenter who was watching the melee from the supposed safety of a nearby roof. He later died of the wounds. Another rooftop spectator, Allan Blanchard, 29, was blinded by pellets from police guns.

A week later, a group approached another vacant lot in a second effort to establish a People's Park. Sheriff's deputies, police and National Guardsmen arrested more than 400 protesters and bystanders. They took them by bus to a prison farm 25 miles away. Strutting among the prisoners, the sheriff's deputies punched, jabbed, clubbed and verbally terrorized their captives. "Don't none of you move," one deputy was quoted as saying. "We shoot to kill here." After hours of harassment, all were released, and charges were later dismissed. Ironically, the park that began the trouble has since become an innocuous parking lot.

The FBI launched an investigation of the May events and turned over its findings to the Justice Department. Last week twelve of the deputies were indicted by a federal grand jury for misusing their authority. If convicted, some of them could face sentences of eleven years' imprisonment and $6,000 fines.

Campaign Begun. The indictments incensed Alameda County Sheriff Frank Madigan. While admitting that "things got out of hand," he described the investigations and charges of his men as "one of the sickest government operations that I have ever seen." A hardline law-and-order advocate, Madigan believes that his own recommendations for disciplining ten of his men--ranging from demotions to 15-day suspensions without pay--were enough. He claims that the indictments will have a "profound effect" on law enforcement across the country, adding: "No one sends for us until things are out of hand and force is necessary."

Madigan and his allies blame their troubles on U.S. Attorney Cecil Poole, 55, who obtained the indictments from the grand jury on his last day in office. A black and a Democratic appointee, Poole had served in Northern California since 1961 and has twice been blocked by politics from ascending to the federal bench. The last occasion was when his appointment by Lyndon Johnson was withdrawn after the Republicans took office. He was recently appointed a professor at Berkeley's law school, and Madigan hints that the indictments were designed to mollify his liberal new associates at the university. The accusation is weak, considering Poole's excellent law-enforcement record. But Sheriff Madigan, 61, faces re-election this June in a county where the hard line wins votes.

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