(Interview has been lightly edited for content)
Rokosz Most: How old are you?
Margaret Human: 82.
RM: I’ve heard from a number of people about your arrest, and I guess I should just confirm that that’s what happened.
MH: Well, I definitely got arrested.
RM: Can you describe the manner in which you were arrested?
MH: We were all sitting around facing out in a circle, locked arm in arm, and you couldn’t sit that way for any length of time, at least my old bones couldn’t. I was locked with Maggie Veve. She’s another adult woman that I was sitting next to and she and I agreed that we really weren’t interested in resisting arrest, and that we would let go when they came for us. But when they came for us, they came so fast. I just didn’t know what was happening. And somehow or other, we stayed locked together by the elbows. We were dragged together for a little bit. And then, I think maybe they were just dragging her and the next thing I knew, somebody was dragging me. Anyway, so I got dragged. I wasn’t aware at the time, but when I took a bath the next day, I saw that I had a kind of a handprint, black and blue mark on my thigh, So, somebody must have held on tight, then they put the plastic cuffs on behind my back. One of them was so tight they eventually had to cut it off, let me try and get this in time sequence. So, the next thing, I’m holding on to the policeman. I was supposed to stand up, I don’t know. I guess he’s holding my arm, and we’re walking very fast downhill, like three times as fast as I usually walk. I didn’t have my cane, but I’m holding on to a policeman, and we’re going downhill, so off we go. And I think he was a state trooper.
And then I see there’s a big, long line of people waiting to kind of get on a bus or something.
And so, this line is going very slowly, and I didn’t expect to be so athletic, even sitting locked on the ground, I thought what I came to do was lie in my sleeping bag until they arrested me. But anyway. So kind of standing still a lot and moving forward very slow, I began to feel very faint. And I got to a point where I just said, I got to sit down, and I sat on a curb.
And then I think that was when they were trying to cut my plastic handcuffs off, one of them, because I said it was too tight For a couple of days, my thumb was kind of numb from it, and I had a little red mark. So they were trying to cut the [zip tie] off but they didn’t have anything that cut the stuff. They had to go send for something
I don’t have this all very good in time because I was beginning to feel really out of it. Even sitting down, I felt like I had to lie down or I was going to fall down, so I laid down on the ground. And so, that got people kind of excited, and they called the rescue squad
who took my blood pressure, and then they had me stand up and they took my blood pressure, and they said my blood pressure went way down when I stood up. I don’t even know what that means, but that made them think that I should go to the emergency room.
RM: When you say rescue squad, do you mean EMTs?
MH: Yeah, that’s what we call it in New Paltz. The rescue squad. It’s glamorous, isn’t it?
The police were careful to say that they couldn’t force me to go to the emergency room, but I just felt like if I continued on, I was still going to have to stand around, and I was going to fall down at some point, so I opted for the emergency room. I think it was the advice of the rescue squad that put me over the edge to decide that. I found it difficult to decide. Anyway, so they asked me what hospital I wanted to go to. I had a choice of Kingston or Poughkeepsie. I chose Poughkeepsie. They took me over to Vassar Hospital
I don’t know if you want to hear my adventures in the ER.
RM: If you want to, I’m listening
MH: Well, they just gave me a whole lot of tests, and all they said was, it looks like you must have overdone it, which I can totally agree with. Including my adventures in the ER, I was up for more than 24 hours. I don’t believe I’ve ever been up for more than 24 hours in my whole life. I was never somebody who did all-nighters as a kid. So it just was kind of hard on an old woman. I bit off more than I could chew, obviously
RM: Did they just let you go?
MH: Well, they gave me an arrest slip. I never got booked because I was in the ER. So I don’t have a court date. I called Michael Sussman, and his advice was to wait and see if somebody got in touch with me with a court date. I heard that you could call the town court and see if you had a court date, but they didn’t know anything. And the last I heard from them was that the state police would get in touch with me, which they haven’t.
RM: On the arrest slip, does it say what you were arrested for?
MH: Trespassing.
RM: All the reports I’ve been hearing, it has you being thrown to the ground. Did that ever happen?
MH: Oh, yeah. I was like face down on the ground.
RM: But they didn’t stand you up and throw you back down.
MH: I don’t know. It’s very hard for me to know what happened. I know I ended up face down on the ground. And I know I wasn’t where I was. I had gotten dragged there.
RM: So why were you there protesting?
MH: I was just in solidarity with the kids. I thought they were doing a very good thing.
I’m not quite as radical as they are. There seem to be a lot of people totally supporting the Palestinian side of it. I just want us to keep out of it. I can’t believe we’re sending weapons over there. So that’s my position.
RM: That’s how you found yourself in that situation
MH: I probably wanted to just do it because I had just told myself I was never going down to New York for stuff. But I thought, oh, this is local. I’ve been a climate activist. And I’ve been through a lot of arrests. And it was never like this.
RM: I think I noticed on the Hudson Valley One website that you’ve been interviewed by us before. This was back in 2011. So it’s quite some time ago
MH: Oh, yeah. I went to Washington in 2011 during the Occupy movement. I wasn’t exactly in Occupy. There was a concurrent thing going on called Another World is Possible. And we were on the plaza in Washington. And I was there from September to Christmas. I got pneumonia. I think I went home Christmas Day.
RM: So you’re not a stranger to civil disobedience?
MH: No. I think it’s a very effective tactic. I think it’s shown to be effective with these encampments.
RM: How do you feel about the state trooper response to the students?
MH: Crazy. Crazy. Totally unnecessarily violent. I don’t understand it at all.
RM: So how is the recovery process since?
MH: Me personally? I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m just old.
RM: Well, you sound durable.
MH: Well, I’m never going to do one of these things again. I think I learned my lesson.
RM: Is there anything you’d like to tell me before we wrap it up?
MH: I felt when I was there, I was there for the afternoon and into the evening and it was a very peaceful, friendly camp. And there was a couple of gals who said a prayer for the dead in Hebrew and things like that were going on.
RM: It in no way justified the response?
MH: I don’t see how it could have. Also I don’t like to be referred to as an outside agitator.
I was there as a community supporter. I did not agitate anybody to do anything.
RM: You don’t sound like an outside agitator.
MH: Well, I’ve been known to agitate, but I was just following the lead of the students in this.
RM: So as a consequence of this, what do you think should happen?
MH: There should be a total amnesty as far as student grades and graduations and things, just to make up for what they went through.
RM: I think we can assume that everyone is going to get amnesty at this point.
MH: Has [President Wheeler] been conciliatory?
RM: I don’t believe he’s actually apologized. He’s expressed his regret. He’s been doing soul searching and he’s listening to the voices of the community, but I do not believe he’s apologized yet.
MH: Jeez. Okay. I think there’s going to be lawsuits against the police — there’s people with injuries. And I, I took a picture of my, my black and blue mark in case it’s helpful.
RM: You didn’t get the name of the police officer that arrested you, did you?
MH: I did, but my memory is like a sieve. I looked at his badge and I tried to read it and he helped me read it.
RM: So the one that arrested you, he had his identification showing?
MH: He definitely had his badge showing. He may have just been there to ask me to stand up and tell him my name and stuff.
RM: When you have, you know, a portion of the population that’s allowed to use violent force against its citizenry, and if they don’t identify themselves, that’s usually an indicator of a different kind of government.
MH: It’s not what we do normally. One hopes.
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