San Diego
About 50 college students armed with drums and a megaphone protested Friday outside a La Jolla hotel where Gov. Pete Wilson was attending a luncheon.
“What we’re upset about are the cuts to the state’s education budget,” said Ron Bueno, a 24-year-old graphic-design major at San Diego State University. “We’re working under the belief that an education nation is a healthy and strong one.”
The students began their protest shortly after 11 a.m. when they entered the lobby of the Hyatt Regency in La Jolla. They then moved outside to the hotel’s front driveway, where they marched in a circle to the beating of drums.
The students also shouted chants, and some carried signs, one of which read “Protect Our Country--Support Education.”
“We want to let Wilson know he won’t succeed at pitting education against vital social services for the poor,” said Ely Rabani, a 24-year-old molecular biology major at UC San Diego.
About a dozen police cars surrounded the driveway while a group of officers guarded the lobby doors. No arrests were made and nobody was injured.
Toward the end of the more than two-hour demonstration, the students broke into three groups and spread out to cover each of the hotel’s exits in an attempt to catch Wilson as he left the hotel.
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