UC Berkeley police, FBI raid activist cooperative

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Aug 27, 2008 | by Doug Oakley

BERKELEY -- UC Berkeley police with the help of the FBI and Alameda County Sheriff's deputies raided a cooperative in Berkeley on Wednesday, seizing 14 computers.

"We were investigating threatening e-mails we tracked to computers there," said UC Berkeley spokesman Robert Sanders.

"The details of the e-mail are confidential because it is related to an investigation." Sanders has been the university's spokesman on investigations into animal rights activists who are harassing researchers at the school. He declined to comment further on the warrant.

The warrant served on the Long Haul Infoshop on Shattuck Avenue just south of Ashby Avenue said police are seeking evidence that could be used to commit a felony, according to a man who answered the phone at the office space who gave his name only as "B."

According to B, police might have been looking for information on animal rights activists or tree sitters at the UC Berkeley Oak grove who are protesting the construction of a $125 million student athletic training center.

"All kinds of groups come through here, and I wouldn't be surprised if in the last 30 years an animal rights group came through here," said B.

"But people who are on the road use our computers too. We have a bunch of computers and make them available to anybody who wants to use them."

The Long Haul is an "open activist space," B said and is used by groups such as Berkeley Liberation Radio, individual tree-sit supporters, a needle exchange group, Slingshot newspaper, East Bay Prisoner Support and Cycles of Change.

"The police came in with their guns drawn, cut all the locks off all our doors, rifled through our mail and took every computer and flash drive and left," he added.

A UC Berkeley police spokesman did not return phone calls for information on the warrant.

Reach Doug Oakley at doakley@bayareanewsgroup.com.