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FREEDOMWAYS   FIRST QUARTER 1973

vacillating tendency of this petty-bourgeois Commission soon became apparent when they threatened the students with suspension of the governor's "pledge of academic and criminal amnesty" unless they discontinued their boycotts which were by now ninety percent effective at both campuses. The Governor himself had met in a private session with the students in New Orleans. He complained that he was under a tremendous amount of political pressure, for folks (white) were saying that he was too lenient with the students. He pleaded with the students to call off the boycott. When they refused he threatened to close the school down. After this meeting the governor began to take an increasingly hard line with the students.

At about four a.m., Thursday, November 16, Baton Rouge policemen arrested Charlene Hardnett and three other Students United leaders at their homes charging them with "disrupting the normal educational process." These warrants were all dated November 6th and had supposedly been rescinded by Governor Edwards when he formed the Blue Ribbon panel and granted amnesty to the SUNO students.

At about eight a.m., Students United leaders, who had not been arrested, went to various classrooms and dorms to get some students to see Dr. Netterville about getting their comrades out of jail. Soon thereafter about three hundred students converged on Netterville's office. He told the students, "Wait right here, I'm going downtown to see about it now."

Netterville then left under his own power. At this time, secretaries, office workers, security guards were all in the building coming and going as they pleased. Nothing that resembled a takeover was present. About fifteen minutes later, Sheriff's deputies, state troopers and police moved on the campus. They told students they had five minutes to leave the building. At the end of this period a State trooper tossed a tear gas canister into the crowd of the students who were gathered on the steps of the Administration building. The canister didn't explode. A student picked up the canister and threw it back over the heads of the State troopers into the sheriff deputies where it exploded. Coughing and gasping the deputies scattered wildly to get their gas masks. As soon as they put their masks on the deputies began to shoot repeatedly into the crowd of students who began running away from the line of fire. Brother Sababu was standing bear Brothers Brown and Smith. As he bent down to retrieve a canister, shots rang out and the two brothers fell to the ground critically wounded in the head. Given his proximity to the two slain Brothers and the fact

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-21 08:31:54