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cont...
There had been cases of police abuse in the previous riots, but during
I.V. III, police misconduct really became an issue due to the
overzealous actions of, primarily, the Los Angeles Special Tactical
Squad and other police.
 The
Delta Omega fraternity's president stated: "The use of force
just totally got out of hand. The students--even people like me--started
to get a little hot about the approach that was taken."
One of those indicted, Walt Chesnavich, said: "Every day
I would hear stories about what the LA. Tactical Squad was doing
the night before, kicking down doors and dragging people around
. . . . If the things they said about police brutality weren't
true before the L.A. police came, it sure as hell was true after
they came; it created its own riot."
As Chris Attwood, a student who later became a leader in the effort
to build a new community in Isla Vista in the early 1970s, put
it: "I knew of people that were thrown off roofs, people
that had to be hospitalized . . . the police came in . . . we
couldn't leave our homes (due to curfew) . . . they gassed our
homes . . . . You know, they'd march down the street, just hundreds
of 'em, 40-at-a-time . . . . It was war, that's basically what
it was. It was our community against the police. What it did for
this town, I think at least for several years, was one of the
most incredible things I've ever seen. During this time, people
were on the streets. Everyone had to depend on everyone else.
There wasn't any other way to survive."
I.V. III's Final Toll
The Santa Barbara Citizens Commission on Civil DisorÜders convened
that June to examine the events of that winter and spring.
The final report stated that, The Faculty-Clergy Observer Program
group turn(ed) over to the Attorney General's office and the FBI
over 300 signed complaints against law enforcement officers for
the period June 6th to 12th, alleging:
-113 persons beaten
-60 dwellings illegally entered and searched
-48 instances of willful destruction of personal property
-34 persons apprehended on private property for curfew violations
-6 instances of improper familiarities with arrested women, and
-numerous other irregularities in Isla Vista as well as a long
list of complaints including alleged brutalities en route to the
jail and in the jail.
Malcolm Gault-Williams is author of the book Don't Bank on
Amerika: the History of the Isla Vista Riots of 1970 which can
be found at www.legendarysurfers.com. He lived in Isla Vista in
1970 and retuned in 1983. He was the station manager at the UCSB
campus radio station KCSB-FM from 1984 to 1989, and was elected
to the Isla Vista Park Board during that period. He currently
lives in Santa Barbara and works at the UCSB Library.
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