The State - News from April 25, 1989

Four people were arrested in Berkeley after they chained themselves to a concrete slab poured over the weekend in an effort to build a permanent toilet on University of California-owned People’s Park. The protesters were cited on misdemeanor charges of entering property with the intent to cause damage, said university police. Campus workers later tore up the slab and carted it away. There was no resistance by those arrested, although police said officers had to use bolt cutters to remove them. On Thursday, 50 people commemorating the 20th anniversary of the founding of the park started building the toilet, only to have it torn up the next morning by campus workers and police. They returned over the weekend. The park had its beginning on April 20, 1969, when activists began occupying the empty 2.3-acre lot, which had been bought by the university 10 months earlier.