Three Pittsburg High Students Arrested During Trump Protest
ANTIOCH (CBS SF) -- Police in Antioch arrested three Pittsburg High School students Thursday morning during an anti-Donald Trump protest that ended up at Antioch High School, according to police.
The protest involved between 200 to 400 Pittsburg students who walked out of class and off campus with their principal Thursday morning in protest of Trump being elected as the next U.S. president, according to Antioch police.
The crowd headed through Century Plaza in Pittsburg and into Antioch on Auto Center Way and Sycamore Drive, blocking traffic as they went.
The protesters eventually ended up at Antioch High School, where they tried to convince students there to join them, police said.
(video courtesy EastCountyToday.net)
The Antioch campus was placed on lockdown, but that didn't stop the protesters from knocking down fences and kicking over trash cans before leaving and heading toward Antioch Middle School, according to police.
Antioch Middle School, Fremont Elementary School and Live Oak High School were all placed on lockdown, although the protest never made it to those schools, police said.
"These Pittsburg High protesters continued to cause havoc on Antioch campuses and in the surrounding neighborhoods for over two hours," Antioch police said in a statement.
Of the three Pittsburg student arrests, one was for allegedly throwing a dangerous object at police, trespassing on school grounds and being a disruptive presence at school; one was for allegedly inciting a fight with another student, trespassing on school grounds and resisting a police officer; and one was for allegedly assaulting a police officer.
Most of the Pittsburg students eventually walked back to Century Plaza and some were rounded up and put onto buses to be driven back to their own campus, police said.
Antioch Police Chief Allan Cantando later posted an open letter addressing the Pittsburg Unified School District about the incident. Cantando characterized a statement issued by Pittsburg Unified School District Superintendent Janet Schulze as "extremely brief and does not adequately portray the incident."
In that statement, Schulze said, "Unfortunately, a small number of the students were unresponsive to directives to return to school."
Cantando said he would attend the next PUSD board meeting to ask if the Thursday protest was sanctioned by the school or district and if school or district staff encouraged the protest among other questions.
The action was just one of several anti-Trump high school student protests around the Bay Area Thursday.
In Richmond, the California Highway Patrol closed the MacDonald Avenue off-ramp from eastbound Interstate Highway 80 as about 100 protesters tried to get onto the highway and block traffic, CHP spokesman Officer Sean Wilkenfeld said.
That group was part of a larger crowd of protesters that included around 1,000 students from Greenwood Academy, John F. Kennedy and Richmond high schools in Richmond and El Cerrito High School in El Cerrito, according to Richmond police spokesman Lt. Felix Tan.
Those students walked out of class after lunch and by about 3 p.m. were moving north on San Pablo Avenue toward the city of San Pablo.
Tan said drivers should stay away from the area to avoid delays.
No violence or vandalism was reported during the Richmond protest.
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