At an April 2 pre-trial hearing the Oberlin Police Department cut a deal with Day X demonstrator Claire Miller.
The ’02 Oberlin graduate had been arrested for crawling into an open window of Oberlin High School during an anti-war rally and booked with criminal trespassing, criminal burglary charges, and a $10,000 bail. But after Miller plead no contest to criminal trespassing, the criminal burglary charge was dropped, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The Interdisciplinary Performance grad now faces a single criminal trespassing charge, a first-degree misdemeanor.
“All in all I think the police handled the incident quite well. They averted any escalation [at the rally] and did as good a job as possible with the situation,” Director of Safety and Security Robert Jones said.
While city police handled the event’s security, Jones kept an eye on the rally, watching it move from Tappan Square across town to 281 North Pleasant Street, Oberlin High School. “It was similar to other rallies, about as peaceful as these things can be, but after the march moved to the school, well, I don’t know intentions, but things got confrontational,” Jones said.
Oberlin police continue to investigate the case. This week, one plainclothes officer paid the second floor of Mudd a visit, seeking to match live faces to those captured on video shot by police and high school personnel at the rally. “A plain clothes officer approached me on the second floor of Mudd at 9:30 p.m., looking for my housemate who was asleep on a couch. He woke her and we spoke. He had a stack of stills taken from the videos of the demonstration. Another person was visited at their home,” senior Kate Saturly said.
Oberlin Coalition Against the War organizer Ted Virdone was one of the lucky few to earn a home visit.
“The police came to my doorstep. It’s not even my legal address so I am not sure how they knew to go there,” Virdone said. Virdone’s face had flashed across the videotape and the police wanted to know if he had climbed in the same window as Miller. “He said that they were looking to charge other people and that he wouldn’t be surprised if [I] was charged,” Virdone said.
According to Day X organizers, the march had been planned to end in a rally of solidarity with Oberlin high school students. College activists had been in touch with high school students and together, they had decided an OHS walk out was in order. School policy did not agree.
“Our policy requires parental permission to be excused from school. Students were made aware that they would need parental permission to leave school if they planned to participated in the rally… By law, our students cannot just “walkout”. We have a legal and professional responsibility to assure their whereabouts and safety.” Oberlin Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Reep said.
In the end, about ten high school students missed school for the antiwar demonstration. One junior named Valerie, the student who had been working with college activists, gave a speech. The other nine simply left school at noon to attend the rally, permission slip from parents in hand.
Upon hearing that the demonstrators planned to march to the high school, school personnel asked the Oberlin Police to accompany demonstrators and ensure that no one entered the building.
By the time marchers hit North Pleasant, a dozen local Oberlin police officers, a few cars of Lorain County reinforcement officers and one K-9 unit, threaded the crowd. According to the Oberlin Police Incident Report, officers formed a line around the high school, which demonstrators were not allowed to cross. By 1:15, about 400 demonstrators had reached the police line and begun to chant for the release of Oberlin high school students.
While the sight of blue badges encouraged some students to leave the schoolyard, others continued to chant and yell. Both inside and outside the school, observers were confused about what was happening.
“Students inside the school were scared and upset. They didn’t know why college students were surrounding the building and yelling. The teacher I work with said that some kids were crying. They felt scared,” junior Rachel Klauber said.
Student organizers admit the rally may have gotten out of hand. “We had not adequately prepared for the march. We admit guilt on that,” OCAW organizer sophomore Quinlin Bowman said.
Miller entered the school after marchers realized that they could not enter the school from the front and began winding around the high school, pounding on windows and yelling for high school students to join them in the march. In one vacant classroom, Room 111, windows had been left open. Miller crawled inside. According to the police report, Miller was arrested at the request of Oberlin High School Principal Rosalyn Valentine, the person who found Miller in the empty room.