Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Profile of Treesitter Zachary RunningWolf

This guy’s a real gem.

He never went to Cal; he simply graduated from Berkeley High School. He’s 43 and proudly notes “I have already been surviving without getting paid (economically) for the past 11 years.” When he ran for mayor last year, he called for a hunger strike against UC to “get the downtown back,” as well as protests against UC for involvement in genetically altered food. He demanded that all Berkeley buses run on vegetable oil, and was against RFID tags in Berkeley public libraries, as they apparently prevent people like him from stealing books. He’s active in the “Free Mumia Abu-Jamal” movement (insisting on the release of a convicted cop killer).

From EastBay Express:

RunningWolf was charged with misdemeanor vandalism for defacing a stop sign at Fourth Street and Bancroft Way. Police also nabbed him back in December 2005 for allegedly spray-painting other stop signs, a transgression the district attorney's office says violated the terms of RunningWolf's probation. That's right, probation. The 43-year-old candidate was on probation for a 2003 misdemeanour conviction.

According to court documents and police reports, RunningWolf's December run-in with the cops went down like this: A witness driving westbound spotted a guy with a ponytail and a red bandanna spraying the word "driving" on a stop sign at Bancroft and West. The witness called the cops; while waiting for them to come, the witness watched the ponytail guy tag another stop sign. When two officers later confronted RunningWolf, he was "immediately hostile to us, saying we were racially profiling him, that he had been stopped before and harassed," the police report says. "He stated several times he was an 'Indian Warrior' and would 'put a foot in our ass.'" He also denied defacing the signs, even though police spotted a stencil that said "DRIVING" sticking out of his courier bag, and found a can of white spray paint in the bag.

A few weeks later, another cop on patrol spotted RunningWolf kneeling near a stop sign on Fourth Street putting a "DRIVING" stencil in his bag. If that wasn't incriminating enough, the sign was freshly spray-painted and RunningWolf had white paint on his fingers.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Berkeley. Tragedy, farce, and comedy, all done up with the nice aroma of patchouli and days-old trash.

Is anyone truly surprised by this? I mean, really?

If there is one thing the EnviroKooks are quite adept at, it is judge shopping. It looks to me like they got themselves a good one, who will probably have the ability and the authority to keep this training center project bollixed up for the long term.

The university has no choice but to appeal, and to do so vigorously.

If taken at its logical conclusion, this decision bodes very badly for any kind of retrofit project on The Crack House. This project was stopped merely because it was adjacent to the Hayward Fault - IOW, pretty much the entire Kal campus will fit under that criterion (the trees involved were planted after the stadium was constructed, and are a side issue, IMHO).

The NIMBY phenomenon has been pressed and formed by the Berkeley folks into BANANA - “build absolutely nothing, anywhere near anything.”

If it turns out the Rai-Duhs decide to bunk in with the 49ers in Santa Clara, perhaps Kal could get a decent rental rate at the Mausoleum.

Henry said...

As a Golden Bear season ticket holder for football, I am disgusted with these tree sitters or EcoFreaks as I call them. I heard there was a Political Action Committee that was created to counter these EcoFreaks. Does anyone know the name of this group because I am willing to donate time and money to fight this.

Anonymous said...

I go to Berkeley in the MBA program, and you sir are a fucking retard. We need to care about our environment. The only sad part on game days is all the white trash that is present.. Where do these people come from? Santa Rosa? Concord? Rodeo Trailer Park motel?

Anonymous said...

Poor Zach the wolf. I guess since the judge said no more tree sitting, Zach must find another job...a job? Has Zach ever held a job. Maybe he can sell carbon offsets for Al Gore.And for the MBA eco-freak...google "Al Gore and the $300 man" maybe you can do your thesis on the "original carbon offset" Go bears!