Cornell U. student arrested at G20 protests

By Megan Carney, Cornell Daily Sun/UWire

Published Sept. 29, 2009

CORNELL UNIVERSITY -- Malcolm Sanborn-Hum ’11 was one of 66 protesters arrested during Thursday’s G20 Summit demonstrations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, according to Pittsburgh’s Department of Public Safety. He was charged with aggravated assault and disorderly conduct, held at the Allegheny County Jail, and released Friday night on bail. He has since returned to Cornell.

According to Sanborn-Hum, the Cornell Organization for Labor Action organized the trip to Pittsburgh, in which at least five Cornell students participated. Sanborn-Hum cited “deep moral grievances” with the structure of the G20 and its policies as the motivation behind his decision to protest.

“The G20 represents a forum for the most powerful economies in the world to dictate trade and financial policies that affect the global community,” Sanborn-Hum wrote in an e-mail last night. “Despite including around two-thirds of the world population, the geographical distribution of the G20 reflects another reality and bias. There is only one African nation and only two South American nations represented in the conference. … Our objections with the conference were founded in beliefs in environmental justice, economic equality and in social compassion.”

Sanborn-Hum did not wish to comment on his arrest. The cause of the arrest and his whereabouts immediately following were unclear to his friends.

“No one knows why he was arrested or exactly what happened to him,” wrote David Bower ’11, a friend of Sanborn-Hum, in an e-mail on Friday. “He is being held at an undisclosed location … We have called the Pittsburgh police and we do not know [his] location.”

A YouTube video documenting Sanborn-Hum’s arrest surfaced on Thursday afternoon, and has received nearly 70,000 views as of last night.

“He was being peaceful … What did he do?” shouted one onlooker of the arrest, with others chanting “Let him go!” as three police officers equipped with full riot gear and batons took him into custody.

Rammy Salem ’10, president of the Cornell Student Assembly, later confirmed that Sanborn-Hum was held at the Allegheny County Jail.

“We got the number for the Allegheny County Jail. Allen Miller ’11, executive vice president of the Inter-Fraternity Council called them and they told him that they didn’t have any information on the prisoner. We kept pushing and they finally told us that he had been released,” Salem stated in an e-mail Saturday.

Bower confirmed Sanborn-Hum’s release.

“He was held in county jail for 24 hours,” Bower stated in an e-mail. “His parents saw the videos of him getting arrested [and] drove down to Pittsburgh to post bail.”

According to Bower, Sanborn-Hum was protesting with a group of students from the Cornell Anti-War Network and others from Ithaca College.

“He was there with a bunch of people. He was part of the group and I believe that some of the kids from CAN and from I.C. were there … Malcolm had known [them] and gone to other protests with [them],” Bower wrote.

The Cornell Anti-War Network could not be reached for comment.

In the event that Sanborn-Hum was not released by Monday, Salem had planned to e-mail Cornell President David Skorton, asking him to pressure the authorities for Sanborn-Hum’s release.

Sanborn-Hum’s friends share mixed feelings about his arrest.

“There are mixed feelings about this whole situation among us. Some of us feel that he may have been verbally assaulting the police officers, and others (like me) feel that the arrest was unwarranted,” Bower stated.

The numerous arrests made by police and their use of pepper spray, tear gas, OC chemical spray, rubber bullets and bean bags to control and disperse crowds, were met with much criticism from protesters and onlookers, as well as civil liberties groups.

“This is really bad stuff,” Bower wrote. “The whole campus should know about the terrible police brutality that has been inflicted on [Malcolm].”

The arresting officers could not be identified. The Pittsburgh Police Bureau, Zone 5 Police Station, Warrant Office and Public Information Officer all refused to comment on the arrest.

While thousands of protesters marched legally on Friday in “The People’s March” sponsored by a Pittsburgh peace organization, Thursday’s smaller march did not have a city permit, according to the Associated Press.

Sanborn-Hum’s arrest was one of many that occured over the course of the two day Summit, during which the heads of state of the G20 major economies met on Thursday and Friday at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center to discuss international monetary policy.

Hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students gathered unlawfully to protest near Schenley Plaza in the Oakland neighborhood on Thursday night, resulting in 42 arrests, according to Pittsburgh’s Department of Public Safety. Nearly 500 University of Pittsburgh students gathered there again on Friday night, resulting in an additional 110 arrests, according to the New York Times.

Before the events on Friday night, Pittsburgh’s WTAE Channel 4 reported that an estimated 4,500 people had protested the Summit, causing $50,000 worth of damages to the city of Pittsburgh.

According to Bower, Sanborn-Hum has a court date this Wednesday.