What Really Killed Rosebud? is an exploration into the life and death of Rosebud Abigail Denovo, a nineteen year old political activist who was killed by the Oakland police in 1992. Rosebud, armed with a machete, broke into the mansion of the then Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, campus. Alerted and called to the scene in the early morning hours the police, after evacuating the Chancellor and his wife, sent in an officer who had been shot and wounded by a suspect just a few weeks previously. There are numerous questions as to what then really happened and why. In trying to unravel the mystery of this young woman's death one comes face to face with the big question - what about violence and non-violence? Was this sweet faced young girl, a rebel with a cause, a new Joan of Arc? What is Anarchy anyhow?

The book is also an offshoot of the author's long involvement with documenting the events and life stories of the people who gather in and around People's Park in Berkeley, home of the early Free Speech Movement in America.

The book begins with a series of photographs depicting Rosebud (born Laura Miller) from age three to just before her death at age nineteen. Following this are a series of reprints of the pertinent newspaper articles (from both mainstream and radical publications) which describe the actual events as well as present various interpretations. Then, comprising the bulk of the book, are interviews with friends and acquaintances of Rosebud, as well as long time observers of the People's Park street scene. In addition, the actual autopsy of Rosebud is presented, casting great doubt on the various official descriptions of the incident.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Claire Burch's books include: Winter Bargains (poetry), Notes of a Survivor (poetry), Careers in Psychiatry (Macmillan), Stranger In The Family: A Guide To Living With the Emotionally Disturbed (Bobbs Merrill), You Be The Mother Follies (Novel), Goodbye My Coney Island Baby (Novel) and Homeless in the Nineties: Selected Poetry 1963-1993 (Regent Press). Her writing has also appeared in LIFE (Special report cover story), Saturday Review, The New Republic, Mademoiselle, Good Housekeeping, McCalls, Redbook, Southwest Review, Poetry (Chicago), Arts and Sciences, and numerous literary quarterlies and anthologies.

Claire has been the long time Artistic Director of Art and Education Media, a public educational non-profit in Berkeley. She has recently become the Artist in Residence there to be assisted by California Arts Council in continuing her writing workshops with street survivors.

MARKETING PLANS

We plan a vigorous promotional campaign based on a three pronged approach. First, chapters of What Really Killed Rosebud? will be downloadable on several featured internet sites. Second, we will secure publicity for the book with the documentary film of the same name, also by the author, since many of its live interviews echo the book. Third, we are preparing a major San Francisco Bay Area promotion as a last goal while memory of Rosebud is still alive and controversial. Towards this end several feature articles are in progress with a counter culture newspaper preparing to devote an entire issue towards aspects of the book. The author contributes regularly to Channel 25 in Berkeley and has agreed to include a reading from the book, following the showing of her video documentary.

I recall "starvation days" in New York City when Claire and James Baldwin and I struggled with early efforts. I remember Jimmy and I agreeing that of the three of us Claire had the only claim to genius. I have been aware during the intervening years of her extraordinary work, both in prose and in the visual arts dealing with the plight of the homeless and dispossessed and unfortunate.

She has always had a unique sympathy for them, never allowing this to be side-tracked by the tragedies in her own life. If anything, these have given her deeper insights and understanding which, coupled with her artistic gifts, have led to a body of rare accomplishments. I consider it somewhat of a national disgrace that her work has not received the attention and acclaim it deserves.
- Elliott Baker, author of A Fine Madness and And We Were Young

Depending on who you talk to, the 19-year old woman who was fatally shot yesterday after breaking into the UC Berkeley chancellor's home with a machete was either a revolutionary heroine or a crazy person.

There is little doubt that Rosebud Abigail Denovo, who was born as Laura Miller, believed passionately in her cause and was willing to use illegal and violent means. But the question that may never be answered is, "Why?"

"I knew she was not crazy - she was righteously angry," said Gina Sasso, 30, a member of the People's Park Defense Union and a candidate for the Berkeley City Council. "She was sometimes foolish and impulsive. She was very committed and very smart. It's a horrible waste."

A different picture comes from an Alameda County probation report prepared after her arrest last year for possessing illegal explosives at a Berkeley hillside campsite. Denovo had a history of causing trouble that began at age 5 in her hometown of Lexington, Ky., the report said. By age 12, she was described as angry and rebellious, often running away and fighting constantly with her schoolmates. According to the report, she once threatened to kill her middle-school principal.

A behavior disorder was diagnosed in Denovo when she was 14, the report said.

According to one news account, she was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital in Lexington from September 1987 to June 1986.

She was also described as "extremely brilliant" by sources quoted in the report, passing her high school equivalency exam at the end of her junior year. A friend said she spent a year at Moore-head State University in Kentucky before heading west.

She changed her name to Rosebud Abigail Denovo so her initials would spell "RAD," according to the probation report.

During the past two years, Denovo has been arrested or questioned at least a dozen times by university police for prowling and weapons charges, said university spokeswoman Gretchen Kell.

She had been free on bail pending a September 14 trial in Alameda County Superior Court on charges of possessing explosives after her arrest Aug. 8, 1991, at a homeless encampment east of UC Berkeley's Clark Kerr Campus.

She and her boyfriend at the time, Andrew James Barnum, 31, had been linked to the discovery at the campsite of home made explosives, a marked campus map and a list of university employees.

Police also confiscated a diary that indicated that Denovo had planned to bomb Berkeley City Hall and the chancellor's home as part of a scheme to overthrow the U.S. government. The diary said the bombings would rally a "national people's army to destroy the means of oppression" and discussed a plan called COUGAR: Conspiracy to Overthrow Unlawfully the Government- of Amerikka by Revolutions- . The plan included blowing up the U.S. Capitol building and hijacking and detonating an MX missile.

An entry dated June 25, 1991, read: "Tien, you're not getting off that easy. Man, I want to destroy something."

Denovo and Barnum had been heavily involved at People's Park, where protesters unsuccessfully tried to block construction of the volleyball courts. Denovo was arrested in People's Park on July 3 for battery on a police officer during a demonstration and again on July 31 for trespassing and prowling near the Doe Library.

From The San Francisco Chronicle, August 26, 1992 (© The San Francisco Chronicle. Reprinted With Permission.)

Just a month before Berkeley radical Rosebud Denovo was killed while brandishing a machete in the UC-Berkeley chancellor's home, she told her father she might enroll at UC Berkeley.

Denovo's father and mother, Green and Carolyn Miller, were visiting from Kentucky in what Denovo's friends called a reconciliation after a tumultuous childhood.

"At the time, we felt very, very good," Green Miller said yesterday. "We felt things were finally going in the right direction."

But progress went awry Tuesday morning, when Denovo broke into the chancellor's home and was shot to death by police.

Denovo, who had taken up the People's Park cause, was arrested last year with explosives meant to blow up the chancellor's home. Tuesday, she bore a note: "We are willing to die for this Property," it said. "Are you?"

Several seemingly contradictory desires - such as wanting to kill Chancellor 'Chang-Lin Tien and enroll in his school - emerged yesterday as mental health professionals, Berkeley politicos and Denovo's family tried to make sense of the tragedy.

According to an Alameda County probation report, De-novo had first seen a therapist at the age of 5, and was committed to a mental hospital twice, at ages 14 and 18. She had hit a friend, threatened the life of the vice principal of her middle school and run away from home. But according to the report, she was never diagnosed as psychotic. Her diagnoses ranged from "personality disorder" to "conduct disorder" to "obsessive/compulsive traits."

San Francisco psychiatrist Dr. Lenore Terr said that Denovo was still sick. "Most of the people in our society who do violence are not psychotic," said Terr, an expert in childhood trauma. "The kind of diagnosis she had perfectly fits the kind of person who ends up in someone's house with a machete."

But Berkeley psychiatrist Dr. Neal Blumfeld said Denovo's troubles were only half the problem. He said she appears to have been someone who was extremely sensitive to injustice, who was stressed by the country's rightward tilt and economic decline. "Governor Wilson doesn't seem to care if there's a budget and Bush doesn't admit there's economic problems in the country. The authority figures are cruel. The university wants to bulldoze People's Park. I imagine to someone who is not jaded, this could really stir them up." David Beauvais, Denovo's attorney, argued yesterday that her acts were consistent with her anarchist writings and work in the anti-war, civil rights and homeless movements. Her attempted attack on Tien was not mental illness, but political martyrdom, he said. "She was the kind of a person who was willing to put her body and soul on the line for what she believed in," Beauvais said. "In 50 years it's conceivable she'll be in high school textbooks of American history as a freedom fighter of the past."

Yet Terr argued that Denovo's political ideas and her writings threatening the president and the pope, were less significant than her threats against the vice principal and the chancellor.

"Before she'd even heard of People's Park, she had it in for the vice principal," Terr said. "There's a pattern in this girl's life. A problem with educational authorities."

Which leads to the question of whether the problem started at home. Denovo's father, Green Miller, is dean of the economics department at Moorehead State University in Kentucky.

He said yesterday that he couldn't understand why his daughter harbored such strong anti-authority feelings.

Even though the Millers committed their daughter to the mental hospital after years of family discord, Miller said yesterday his daughter was "someone who loved us," and "brought happiness to our homes."

Terr said there is no way to know without more information whether Denovo's anti-authority attitude started at home.
-Staff writer Tracie Reynolds contributed to this report.
From The Oakland Tribune, August 27, 1992. (Reprinted With Permission.)

BERKELEY - The question gnaws at activists, her friends and a member of the Berkeley police commission:

If Rosebud Denovo's intended victims were out of the house and she no longer posed an immediate threat to anyone, why didn't police simply surround the UC-Berkeley chancellor's mansion and attempt to negotiate her surrender?

Instead, the machete-wielding Denovo was confronted Tuesday morning in an upstairs bedroom, police said. And it was there that she was shot in the heart by an Oakland police officer who had recently returned to duty after having been shot five times himself by a robbery suspect.

Officer Craig Chew, 26, fired after Denovo - a troubled 20-year old with a history of run-ins with the law - lunged at him, UC Berkeley Police Lt. Patrick Carroll said.

UC-Berkeley police were in charge of the situation that included officers from the Oakland and Berkeley city police departments. Bob Sanders, a university spokesman, said police would not comment on the tactical decision made on Tuesday because it may jeopardize their investigation of the shooting.

But Berkeley Police Review Commissioner Osha Neumann questioned why police commanders ever let Officer Chew get into such a dangerous and potentially violent situation.

Neumann's commission has no purview over university police operations, and UC has no such commission of its own. Still, Neumann wonders why, once Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien and his wife, Di Hwa, were escorted out of the house by police, officers could not have taken the time to develop a plan to coax or flush Denovo out of the building.

The Tiens' exit "should have provided police time to develop a strategy to minimize the risk to the officer and also the suspect," Neumann said. "Having an officer, presumably with his gun drawn, enter rooms where he doesn't know what's inside is the most risky scenario I can imagine."

UC-Berkeley police declined to provide a copy of their policy on dealing With barricaded suspects, saying its release would compromise security. But a 1988 Berkeley city police policy emphasizes two goals: protecting the lives of everybody involved, including the suspect, and taking the time necessary to resolve crises without injuries.

"As much time as may be necessary will be used to ensure the nonviolent resolution of such situations even if a number of days is required," states the policy, which reflects standard police procedures. Berkeley Lt. Tom Grant said, however, that "There are so many things that happen that require an officer's discretion, it's hard to say there's a set policy."

Friends and activists who knew Denovo - a homeless People's Park activist - are calling for an independent investigation of the police handling of the situation.

"It didn't have to go down this way,"said Denovo's attorney, David Beauvais. "There were 1,000 different ways the police could have handled this without killing her."

Questions about the police tactics have fueled the anger among protesters who demonstrated with Denovo over university construction of volleyball courts at People's Park.

"Where are the rubber bullets when we need them?" said activist Aaron Handel. "In this case there was no Mace, no tear gas, just bullets to the chest. Why didn't they flush her out with gas?"

The incident began at 5:51 a.m. Tuesday, when Denovo tripped a silent alarm as she used a blowtorch to break into the north campus mansion where the chancellor and his wife slept, Carroll said.

Oakland K-9 units were called in to search the building and, after the first floor was checked, the Tiens, were safely removed from the house.

Police continued to search the three-story mansion for Denovo and a police dog detected her in a second-floor bedroom.

University spokesman Sanders said that as Chew tried to open the bedroom door through a connecting bathroom, Denovo swung the door open, pushing the officer backward into a bathtub.

Then, Carroll said, Denovo lunged at the prone officer with the machete raised in her hands.

Chew fired three times, hitting Denovo once where her hands gripped the machete and twice in the chest, Carroll said.

The shooting brought together two people with tragic histories.

Denovo had a long police record, including an arrest for possession of explosives, and a history of psychiatric problems.

Chew, a three-year veteran of the Oakland Police Department had returned to full-time duty last month, after being shot five times by a robbery suspect a year ago, according to Oakland Police Capt. Jim Hahn.

After a North Oakland robbery, Chew was approaching a parked car when a 15-year-old suspect standing near it suddenly fired on him, wounding him critically in the chest. Chew returned fire, wounding the suspect in the leg.

Prior to joining the Oakland force, Chew spent two years as a Berkeley officer. During that time, the city manager upheld three police review commission complaints against him, including one for excessive force.

In that complaint, according to, Berkeley Commission Review records, a man he arrested during a brawl at a university dance claimed the officer kicked him in the groin and jabbed him with a baton without any physical provocation.

The city does not disclose whether officers are disciplined after complaints are upheld, saying it's a private personnel matter.

However, even some friends of Denovo's believe she knew what she was getting into when she broke into the chancellor's house, and got exactly what she wanted: a dramatic, early death.

"Rosebud," said People's Park activist Michael Delacour, "probably wanted to go down in a big way.
From The San Francisco Examiner, August 27, 1992. (Reprinted With Permission.)

BERKELEY - The ragtag piece of university land known as People's Park hardly looks like a cause worth dying for.

For more than 20 years the park's overgrown thickets and bald patches of grass have been a haven for the disenfranchised and a seemingly unending source of political controversy.

But Tuesday, 20-year old activist Rosebud Denovo took the tensions surrounding the park to a new height when she broke into the UC Berkeley chancellor's mansion wielding a machete, on what some say may have been a suicide mission to avenge the university's handling of the park.

To Denovo and other activists, the park represented much more than just a one-square-block recreational area.

Since 1969, when Vietnam War protesters moved in to take over the piece of vacant land and turn it into a park, it has been held up as a symbol of the liberal ideals of the 60s - a symbol Denovo apparently thought was worth her own life.

According to friends, Denovo saw the park as a testing ground for her anarchistic take on self-government and as a monument to the tenets of free speech.

"She would have said that People's Park represented the concept of liberated space, where people could do what they wanted and be free of concepts like liability insurance and police," said activist Dave Lind, a close friend of Denovo's.

So Denovo and other activists were enraged by any university attempt to assert authority over the land.

Many park supporters shared Denovo's anger at the university's recent construction of volleyball courts and other amenities.

Most say they never expected her to act on it in a way that would end with her being shot in the heart by police while invading the chancellor's mansion. In her duffel bag that day was a note calling for the removal of all university developments in the park.

"Whatever Rosebud had in mind, she didn't tell anybody, because they would have stopped her," said Doug Horngrad, the attorney for De-novo's longtime boyfriend, Andrew Barnum. "Clearly, this was something going on in her own head."

Police records portray Denovo as a disturbed young woman with a long list of arrests, who allegedly collected materials to build bombs and wrote of her desires to kill the chancellor and overthrow the government.

Activists remember the homeless runaway as a soft-spoken and virtually fearless woman, who always stayed on the sidelines of organizing meetings.

Once demonstrations started, however, she was part of the "action faction," which favored a more confrontational approach dealing with police, according to Lind.

"She could be pretty provocative," he said. "She would burn flags, and when the cops attacked, she would fight back."

Another friend said Denovo at times had established a home base under a bush in the park. And, though she had no home and so little money that "she lived on Pepsi and candy bars," Lind said, she was tireless in organizing efforts to raise funds to bail out arrested protesters.

"This movement was her life - she lived it and breathed it," he said. "Obviously, she was prepared to die for it, if on a small scale it would wake people up."

Indeed, the incident has re-ignited protests in the park. The scene there had just begun to quiet down after a tumultuous year of demonstrations beginning with last August's riots over the university's construction of volleyball courts.

The university and City of Berkeley recently completed a series of yearlong construction projects designed to clean up the park, but activists vowed their fight against the new sports courts would continue.

"We're still in the middle of a war here," said activist Eli Yates.

Milton Fujii, the university's director of community affairs, said he believed Denovo's actions had more to do with her desire to lash out at authority than with the park.

"I think the fact that she was here at this place at this time was a coincidence of history," he said. "It could have easily been a nuclear power plant or the Pentagon or almost any symbol of authority that she picked to lash out at.

"All we want is for it to be a place where everyone can feel comfortable and enjoy themselves in the outdoors."

From the day she ran away from home at age 12 until she was killed by a policeman's bullet yesterday, two weeks after her 20th birthday, Rosebud Abigail Denovo was filled with an angry passion to crush out authority.

As a youngster she threatened to kill the vice principal of her middle school in Lexington, Ky., and fought bitterly with her parents and any student who she thought slighted her.

As a young woman she was arrested on suspicion of building bombs to use against University of California officials, and penned poetry about killing the president and the pope. She wrote obsessively in her diaries of sparking a revolution, and of planting a bomb in the UC chancellor's house.

Whether that was her intent yesterday when she broke into Chancellor Chang Lin-Tien's house with a machete and a hunting knife is a secret she took to her grave. An officer shot her as she lunged toward him in a second-story bathroom.

The only clue she left was a note in a duffel bag saying she wanted authorities to stop "interfering" with People's Park in Berkeley, and that she was "willing to die for the land."

And the only legacy she left was the memory of a fiery and often angry homeless protester, hailed as brilliant and sweet by her friends and branded by police as deranged and a constant irritant.

A petite woman at 5 feet 1 inch and 105 pounds, she left an indelible impression on all she met.

"She was the activists' hobbit," said Doug Horngrad, a San Francisco attorney who helped her out legally. "The writings she did, they were what one could call 'fantasmagorical.'

I assumed they were just fantasies, but today we see they weren't fantasies but obsessions."

Emu, a homeless man who hung out with Denovo at the park, said "the police were out to get her, man, and all she ever wanted to do was what was right. "It's such a waste."

Born in 1972 as Laurie Marie Miller and raised by her parents in Kentucky, Denovo was only 5 when her parents sent her to a counselor. By age 14, she had been committed to a mental institution.

"She began exhibiting bizarre behavior and began running away at age 12," according to a probation report filed in Alameda County.

She kicked a girl in school and "made threats to kill the vice president at the middle school," the probation report stated.

She also began calling herself "Rosebud," after a family cat she had at the time, court records state.

"She was extremely defiant at home and would not speak at all to her parents except hatefully," the probation report said.

Denovo's mother was quoted in the report as saying her daughter was "very bright" and involved in "politics and activism," but also "an outsider" who "has a difficult time of fitting in and has few close friends."

Denovo was released after 10 months in the mental institution, but the troubles did not go away.

A high school teacher said Denovo was "outspoken politically and feels that she was somewhat of a leftover from the late 1960s and 70s," according to the probation report.

"Most of the other kids thought that (Denovo) was weird and did not like her," another teacher said.

In one case when Denovo was told not to read a newspaper in class, "She exploded and ranted and raved for some time about not being allowed her educational rights," the teacher said.

After being confined again to an institution in 1989, Denovo escaped in September 1990 and hitchhiked to Portland, Ore., and then to Berkeley.

"She indicates she came to California from Oregon because there was not much to protest there and she wanted to be involved in an organized movement," according to a probation report. In Berkeley, her causes included "the anti-war movement, homelessness, civil liberties, environmental issues, People's Park and legalization of marijuana," the report said.

She associated with several political activist groups, including the People's Park Defense Union, Copwatch, the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, according to court records.

In Berkeley, Denovo apparently lived on the street, working occasionally as a canvasser for an environmental group.

She also liked "to read and write poetry" and make abstract drawings, according to a probation report. But "her major goal is total anarchy, i.e. to take down all forms of government," the report said.

At some point she began calling herself Denovo - the Latin word for "anew" - and also took on the middle name of Abigail. Her initials thus became R.A.D., an apparent reference to her radical politics.

Denovo's plot to kill UC-Berkeley Chancellor Chang Lin-Tien apparently was hatched in June 1991, when demonstrations were rocking Berkeley over the university's plan to build volleyball courts at People's Park.

She called her plan "COUGAR - Conspiracy to Overthrow Unlawfully the Government of Amerikkka by Revolution," according to court records.

A Berkeley transient, Timothy "Freebird" Jacobs, told police he was introduced to Denovo at the time through her boyfriend, Andrew James Barnum, according to the records.

"She wanted to blow things up," Jacobs said in the statement filed in court, and "convinced Andy to build a bomb.

"She used the threat of withdrawing sexual favors to convince (him)," Jacobs said. Jacobs said Barnum used "The Anarchist Cookbook," which describes how to make homemade bombs, to design the device. Rosebud said she wanted six of the bombs, "to blow up the chancellor's home on the campus," Jacobs said.

Jacobs said the trio began collecting the bomb parts, such as fertilizer, laundry detergent, firecrackers and glass bottles, and assembled them in the basement of a house in the 2500 block of Regent Street where they were sleeping.

On July 31, the three went to the campus to "find the chancellor's house to see how to get inside it to blow it up."

A police officer found them hiding in some bushes and arrested them, but they were only cited for prowling and released.

They also were evicted from the house and moved their base to a campsite in the Berkeley hills.

Jacobs said he and Barnum then began expressing reservations about the bomb plot, and Denovo was furious.

"She took his (Barnum's) cigarettes because he wouldn't go out and get gas for the bombs," Jacobs said. " ... Rosebud threatened to cut his throat."

When Barnum said he "was through with the bombs," Denovo said "she had no reason to live and asked him to make one bomb.

"She wanted to take it and blow herself up with a bunch of police," Jacobs said.

The following morning, Jacobs said he awoke to find Denovo "eating glass," apparently because she was distraught the bomb plan was collapsing.

She was taken to the hospital and released, but police picked her up on Aug. 7 on outstanding arrest warrants.

The next day, police discovered the makeshift hills campsite.

There they found six completed bomb detonators, a crossbow, a newspaper called "Love and Rage," a model rocket motor and the bomb paraphernalia.

There also were Denovo's ragged spiral-bound notebooks, in which Denovo wrote her poetry and rambled on about her anarchist philosophy, bomb making activities and plans to overthrow the government.

The notebooks began with words like "We are the Future, Revolution, World Destruction, Anarchy or Chaos" and "ARF: Anarchist Revolutionary Forces."

The notebooks also listed potential bombing targets, including "the tan stucco mansion on campus," an apparent reference to Tien's house.

Other papers listed the names and addresses of the president of the university, the members of the governing board of regents and other UC officials, as well as President Bush and the pope - all apparent bombing targets.

Denovo, Barnum and Jacobs were subsequently charged by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office with three counts of possession of explosives.

Jacobs case later was dropped, and Denovo and Barnum pleaded innocent and were scheduled to go to trial Sept. 14.

Denovo was out on $10,000 bail in the case after posting a bond.

The U.S. Secret Service also investigated Denovo because of her veiled threat against President Bush.

Michael Garduno, assistant to the Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Secret Service office, said the investigation "determined she's probably mentally ill."

The Secret Service talked to some of Denovo's acquaintances, he said, and "most of them indicated she was crazier than they were."

But because she did not seem to pose any immediate threat to Bush and she was being prosecuted on the bomb charge, no federal charges against her were sought, Garduno said.

Authorities, meanwhile, had contacted Denovo's parents, who apparently had lost track of her when she left Kentucky in 1990.

When they tried to get in touch with her at Alameda County juvenile hall, she brushed them off, according to court records.
-Tribune staff writers Tracie Reynolds and Harry Harris contributed to this report.
From The Oakland Tribune, August 26, 1992 . (Reprinted With Permission.) This is a portion of the actual coverage in this edition and has been re-formatted to be readable on these pages.

The evening of Rosebud Denovo's death about 150 people gathered in People's Park. Many rumors had been in the air all day about the killing of Rosebud with many different perspectives on the tragedy, but there was a general consensus that the police didn't have to kill Rosebud. Many emotions were flowing from shock to sadness to rage.

A few UC Bureaucrats, including UC PR person Milton Fuji, showed up and sparked an angry reaction from people gathered. Many people got in their faces and told them to "get the fuck outta here" and as Fuji was leaving he got hit in the back with a cardboard garbage can. Fuji, being a good UC stooge, later wrote an incredibly propagandistic column printed in the Oakland Tribune and the Daily Cal, that People's Park activists were a racist lynch mob. Many people responded with letters and columns to Fuji's utter bullshit.

A little while later a short march to the UC police station of about 200 people happened with people chanting and shouting in grief and rage. The scene was tense but eventually people filtered away to later regather at the park.

People gathered in the Park at 9 p.m. with lots of cops and media lurking around. Many homeless people and street youth, who generally don't come to protests, showed up in full force and were visibly upset about Rosebud's murder. Many people urged revenge, while others argued against it. During the angry discussion an individual started to saw on the volleyball courts, prompting many others to start doing damage to the courts. The police moved in, clubbing several people and the response for many was to go hand to hand with the cops.

A tense atmosphere had erupted. Cops knocked one person unconscious and protesters responded with some rock throwing. Several arrests were made including John Vance and Andy Barnum (Rosebud's boyfriend). Barnum is still in jail.

A few minutes later a bonfire broke out on the corner of Telegraph and Haste and a crowd of about 100 people gathered. At this point the cops laid back. Down Haste people started ripping down construction wood from the new UC dorm at 2424 Channing and a large barricade was built and set on fire. Many people began throwing rocks at the police. Many people joined in and the crowd was openly defiant and noticeably diverse including homeless, youth, activists, people of color, students and women.

As police formed skirmish lines they moved toward the crowd attempting to disperse it.

The crowd broke down into smaller, mobile groups. Protesters moved around the Southside running from police charges, setting bonfires in several intersections, making barricades, attempting to overturn a police car and smashing at least two others. At different points in the night people openly chased police away making for a angry celebration. At one point in the night people began inflicting damage on a UC construction site on Durant near Shattuck. Police finally scattered the rioters using vehicles and officers on foot in tandem. A number of arrests occurred throughout the night.

People's anger was extremely focused against the police and the UC. No looting occurred despite the generic claims of the media who portrayed the night as just "Another Riot in Berkeley." The riot was both unified and militant and did have a real sense of purpose even if the purpose was to do some damage. People felt powerful.

Though there was sense of wanting to avenge Rosebud's killing and many people felt Rosebud would have wanted us to riot, the rebellion went deeper than a police killing or People's Park or hatred of the police and UC. It was about daily anger and frustration and trying to reclaim some spirit against the alienation, misery, and repression of this rotten system that denies human potential and its ability to create something better.
From Slingshot, Harvest Season Issue, 1992. (Reprinted With Permission.)

As parents of UC Berkeley's new freshman class drove into town to deliver their children to the threshold of adulthood, they were welcomed by boarded-up windows, cops in riot gear, and news of a troubled young woman's death at the hands of the police. Early the previous morning, in the elegant campus home of UC Berkeley chancellor Chang-Lin Tien, shots rang out from in upstairs bathroom. Oakland Police Officer Craig Chew brought the life of nineteen-year-old People's Park activist Rosebud Abigail Denovo to a premature end.

The shots resounded across the nation. Here in town, street vendors quickly upped their supplies of "Fuck the Police!" T-shirts. Campus administrators called for beefed-up security. Cops braced for the protests and rioting that were sure to follow. "Machete-wielding Woman Slain," announced headlines coast-to-coast. Had the headlines been written by Denovo's activist friends, people sitting down to breakfast in her home state of Kentucky might have read: "'Brave Teen Anarchist Murdered by Pigs."

Only a police officer and a dead woman know the truth of what happened in that upstairs room. officer Chew claimed to have fired at the machete-swinging teenager in self defense as he fell backwards into the bathtub, startled by Denovo's charge into the room. Some people believe him because he's a cop or because they knew Denovo. Others refuse to believe him for the same reasons.

If Chew's story is true, he may have been justified in pulling the trigger. But whether or not the shooting was indeed self-defense is less of an issue than why 26-year old Chew was there in the first place. In 1989, the Berkeley Police Review Commission upheld three complaints against Chew, then a Berkeley police officer-complaints that included charges of excessive force, abusive behavior, and improper arrests. In November, 1991, just nine months before he killed Denovo, Chew was shot several times by a fifteen-year-old robbery suspect.

The questions loom large. Why was Chew sent into the house? Why didn't the officer's police dog stop the five-foot-one, 105-pound Denovo as she allegedly burst into the bathroom? Why wasn't tear gas used to flush her out? Why didn't the UCPD make use of its trained negotiators?

A university statement issued on August 28 said that police weren't certain Denovo was still in the house; she might have fled while reinforcements were arriving. "Faced with the possibility that an armed, potentially dangerous person was prowling the campus, police decided to search the house," read the statement.

On September 24, an attorney for Denovo's Parents filed a complaint against the UC Police, charging that the UCPD failed to follow its own procedures for handling mentally disturbed suspects. The complaint said that the officers involved should have first attempted "mental health intervention or other intervention through her friends, parents, or attorney."
From the East Bay Express, December 18, 1992. (Reprinted With Permission.)

Two lives, more than $2 million and far too much time, energy, and effort. People prosecuted for playing with chalk. Homeless people driven from one of the few safe havens they had. Ongoing clashes between police and protesters. Telegraph Avenue merchants wondering how long their windows will remain unshattered. That's the running tab so far in the battle over People's Park. By any standard it's way too high.

Clearly, the bulk of the blame lands at the feet of the university, which has arrogantly insisted on reclaiming the park just to prove it can, and the police forces that have inflicted the lion's share of the damage to humans. But some responsibility must also be taken by some protesters who have confused vandalism with politics and forgotten why People's Park was first founded.

Rosebud Abigail Denovo is the latest casualty in this tragedy. Her death was senseless. With the chancellor and his wife already safe, with five trained police officers, a stun gun, a dog, and the opportunity to negotiate instead of confront, there was no reason for shooting her four times. But the shots were not surprising: The police officer involved had already been cited by the city of Berkeley for using excessive force; he - like all California officers, according to Bud Stone, president of the Peace Officers Research Associates of California - had been trained to shoot to kill; and he had just returned to duty after surviving a shooting. The decision to send the police in to find Denovo and bring her out practically determined the outcome.

We have yet to hear a convincing explanation from the university or the police why Denovo, alone in the house, could not have been drawn out using words, tear gas, or another non-lethal method. Why was Officer Craig Chew in the house with a loaded gun? Under the circumstances,we believe Denovo's death could have been avoided.

Of course, Denovo is not only a victim. Anyone who enters the home of the UC chancellor wielding a machete and charging an armed police officer, cannot be considered innocent. And the police have released evidence that this troubled woman fully expected - and perhaps welcomed - her fate. It would be wrong to make a hero or martyr of Denovo, as some activists have tried to do.

None of this exempts the university from the burden it must bear for creating and prolonging this horrible situation. Despite its claim that it wanted to work out a deal with the park activists, when push came to shove, the university was always shoving. Its argument for building on the park was that it had become crime-ridden. But if UC wanted to rid People's Park of crime, it could have done so without building volleyball and basketball courts, without inciting demonstrations and unleashing the police, without trampling on the First Amendment, without spending millions of dollars, and without killing two people. But UC has time and again demonstrated it would rather pay lawyers, cops, and overtime than put one cent into cleaning up the park.

Had it only poured the same resources and determination into realizing the dream of People's Park that it marshaled into destroying it, and the news of past week, much of the past year, and a good chunk of the past quarter-century would have been far different. It would have been better for all of us. Including Rosebud Abigail Denovo.
From the East Bay Express. (Reprinted With Permission.)

The police officer who fatally shot an intruder inside the University of California at Berkeley chancellor's mansion had been investigated for using excessive force and for making improper arrests while serving on the Berkeley force, a police commissioner said yesterday.

Oakland police officer Craig Chew, 26, was accused of misconduct four times in 1989, when he was with the Berkeley Police Department. The Berkeley Police Review Commission upheld three of those complaints, said Robert Bailey, the commission's chief investigator. Bailey could not say whether disciplinary action was taken in any of the cases.

The misconduct charges came to light as police increased security on the campus and assigned an officer to shadow Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien and as more than 30,000 students returned to school.

Rosebud Abigail Denovo, 19, an admitted revolutionary and People's Park supporter with a history of psychological problems and numerous run-ins with police, had made references in her diary to harming the Tiens. Police said the shooting was justified, but Denovo's friends defended her yesterday as a martyr who was murdered by police.

Master at Civil Disobedience

The woman's friends said that although she was a master at civil disobedience, she would not hurt anybody.

She may have wanted to "chop things up and smash the place," said Matt Little Moon, who was a friend. "But chopping up the chancellor and his wife into little, itty bitty pieces, that wasn't her style."

"People are enraged," said Maxina Ventura, a member of the People's Park Defense Committee. "Whether what she did was a good or bad thing to do is one issue, but we have to look at the actions of the police."

Denovo used a propane blowtorch to break through a basement window In the chancellor's home, setting off a silent alarm at 5:51 a.m. Tuesday, police said.

After a police officer spotted Denovo in the house, campus police called Tien and his wife, Di Hwa, and told them to lock their bedroom door. Berkeley police and canine units from the Oakland Police Department were then called in to help search the home.

After the chancellor and his wife were escorted from the building, canine units searched the second floor, where Denovo burst through a bedroom door and tried to slash Chew police said.

Chew reportedly fired three shots as he fell over a bathtub against the wall of an adjoining bathroom. Denovo was pronounced dead at 7:44 a.m.

Improper Arrests

Chew, who was a Berkeley policeman for three years before transferring to Oakland last year, was found to have made an improper arrest and used abusive behavior while breaking up an altercation between two couples on Telegraph Avenue on June 4,1989, Bailey said. On July 16,1989, Chew used excessive force and made an improper arrest while breaking up a fight at the Bear's Lair pub on the Berkeley campus, Bailey said. Chew made another improper arrest while issuing a search warrant at a suspected drug house on Sept. 30, 1989, Bailey said.

David Beauvais, Denovo's attorney in several previous cases, said the misconduct charges make him wonder why Denovo, who was 5-foot-1 and weighed 105 pounds, was shot three times when a police dog should easily have been able to stop her.

Under standard operating rules, Chew has been placed on paid leave for three days. The investigation into the shooting is continuing, but police said Chew had no choice but to shoot.

"She tried to kill him, and he shot until the attack was stopped," said Oakland police Sergeant Brian Thiem.
From The San Francisco Chronicle, August 27, 1992 (© The San Francisco Chronicle. Reprinted With Permission.)

An Oakland police officer's shooting of a machete wielding woman inside the home of the UC-Berkeley chancellor was "absolutely appropriate," Oakland Chief of Police George Hart said yesterday.

Hart said based on the evidence police have gathered, Officer Craig Chew "had no choice but to fire" the shots that killed Rosebud Abigail Denovo last Tuesday morning.

Denovo, 20, was shot three times when she attacked Chew in a bathroom at Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien's north campus home.

Police said Denovo, a self-described revolutionary, broke into the chancellor's home intending to kill him and his family. Security alarms detected her presence and Chew and his dog were requested by university police to help in a room-to-room search.

Hart said the fatal shooting "was tragic and I'm sure Officer Chew would be the first to express that sentiment. But the fact is the officer did what he had to do.

Hart also said media accounts of Chew's personnel record while a Berkeley police officer three years ago "are irrelevant to what happened."

It has been reported the Berkeley Police Review Commission upheld allegations of misconduct by Chew while he was a Berkeley officer in 1989.

They included making an improper arrest and abusing his discretion during a traffic stop in June 1989, and using excessive force and making an improper arrest while he was one of several officers breaking up a large brawl at the Bear's Lair pub on the university campus in July 1989.

The PRC also found Chew made an improper arrest during a raid on a drug house in September 1989.

The July 1989 finding was upheld by the Berkeley city manager's office while the June finding was not. No decision has been made in the third case.

Hart said he has no reason to believe Chew is an overly aggressive officer.

The only time he fired his gun before this week's shooting was in July of last year when a 16-year-old robbery suspect shot him five times. Chew, who returned to full-time duty only a few months ago, was able to wound the assailant, who was later captured.

Hart said Chew's Berkeley record and his performance as an Oakland officer since he joined the department in November 1989 show him to be "a very capable and competent officer."

Hart said, "It's extremely unfortunate and inappropriate that some news stories have attempted to focus on allegations that Officer Chew had force-related complaints in his background" which "in my judgement are irrelevant to what happened at the chancellor's home.

"The fact is known by all and disputed by none that an emotionally disturbed person was attacking the officer and he had no choice but to do what he did. He was not at fault, and he should not be made a fall guy for that."

Hart said the media reports of Chew's past record is "misdirected focus that in my judgement gives comfort and support to those screwballs who are attempting to rationalize their rioting on the streets of Berkeley."
- Tribune staff writer Dan Vasquez contributed to this report.
From The Oakland Tribune. (Reprinted With Permission.)

For Oakland police officer Craig Chew, the 20-year legacy of violent struggle over People's Park came down to a few seconds of life-and-death confrontation.

Chew remembers vividly the look on park protester Rosebud Denovo's face as she bore down on him with a machete in the cramped quarters of a bathroom in the home of University of California at Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien.

"I can only remember seeing her face. Her eyes were wide open and her mouth was open, like she was yelling something, but I can't remember what, if anything, she was saying," Chew told the Tribune last night in his first interview since he fatally shot Denovo on Tuesday.

"She just had this really intense look," he said.

Chew said he fired at Denovo as she burst into the bathroom, wildly swinging the machete and sending him reeling against a wall as he retreated.

"If I hadn't fallen backwards, she would have cut my arm or head off," the 26-year-old officer recalled. "The blade came only 6 inches from my upper torso.

"I didn't even have a chance to say anything" before he instinctively fired off four rounds, Chew said. "From the time she was in view until the time she fell was just a few seconds.

"I feel bad that it had to end up this way," Chew said. "Somebody forced me to take their life, but I refuse to die for somebody who's trying to kill me."

"It's not a good guy vs. bad guy thing, or police vs. somebody else. All the politics and all the reasons were gone. It's not for a cause. They are trying to take my life. They are trying to kill me."

Police say Denovo, who got into the chancellor's house by using a blowtorch to cut through a basement window, apparently planned to attack Tien and his wife.

A year ago Denovo had been charged with making bombs to blow up Tien's house and other targets because the university was building volleyball courts at People's Park.

The park has been the source of repeated clashes between protesters and police since May 1969, when the university evicted students and others from the site.

Chew was only 4 years old at the time.

But this week he found himself drawn into the controversy because of the Denovo shooting and his record as a police officer in Berkeley from 1988 to 1990.

Denovo's supporters have questioned why Chew had to shoot her, and pointed to past decisions by the Berkeley Police Review Commission upholding citizens' complaints against him for excessive force and improper arrests.

Chew dismissed those statements, saying, "In Berkeley, because of the political atmosphere, just being there... you're going to get complaints.... You get complaints whether they're justified or not."

Chew said in each case the police internal affairs section exonerated him and he was never disciplined by the city manager.

Oakland and Berkeley police have praised Chew's work as an officer and said his shooting of Denovo was justified.

Chew joined the Oakland force in November 1990, and last year was shot five times in a confrontation with a teenage robbery suspect.

He was called to the chancellor's mansion Tuesday morning because he is a canine-handler and UC-Berkeley police wanted a dog to search the house.

When Chew arrived, he said officers already had identified Denovo as the intruder and knew she was armed with a machete and knife.

"They were all just signs she was there to commit a murder and basically assassinate the chancellor and his wife," Chew said.

When he entered the house Chew said, the Tiens had locked themselves in their second-floor bedroom. With his gun drawn and his dog beside him, Chew said he joined other officers and searched the basement and ground floor of the mansion.

When they got to the second floor, some officers led the Tiens to safety, while Chew and other officers went inside another bedroom about 20 feet from where the Tiens had been.

The officers immediately sensed Denovo was nearby "because the dog was alerting on the door" to an adjacent bathroom, Chew said.

Chew said he went into the bathroom and was about to open a door to an adjoining bedroom and send the dog in, when Denovo "grabbed the handle" from the other side "and swung it open."

Chew said the dog then ran into the bedroom past Denovo.

"It happened so fast that there was no opportunity to utilize the dog. He didn't have the opportunity to recognize the threat and engage (it)," Chew said.

Chew said Denovo then lunged at him with the machete before he could try to subdue her.

"It was physically impossible because I had my back against the wall and I was off balance," he said. "There's no way I can physically control her before she would have killed me.

"I had no choice but to shoot. No one wants to take someone's life, and no police officer wants to do it in their career," Chew said. "I don't want to do it again."

Despite having two close calls with death in the last year, Chew said he has no intention of leaving police work.

"I made a commitment to myself and the dog. It sounds kind of corny, but I don't want somebody else's actions to alter my goals."
From The Oakland Tribune, August 29, 1992. (Reprinted With Permission.)

An autopsy report revealed yesterday that a machete-wielding intruder inside the chancellor's mansion at UC Berkeley was shot by a policeman four times, including once in the middle of the back.

The new details into the fatal August 25 shooting of 19-year-old activist Rosebud Abigail Denovo sparked another round of questions from lawyers and prompted police to defend the shooting.

Denovo, a 'self-styled revolutionary, used a blowtorch to break into the house of Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien and his wife, Di Hwa, early that morning. She had previously made references to harming the Tiens.

Alerted by a silent alarm, police evacuated the home and called in an Oakland canine unit to search the building. Officer Craig Chew, 26, shot Denovo after she burst through a second-floor bathroom door swinging a machete, police said.

Investigators originally reported that Chew fired four shots, but hit Denovo three times as he fell backwards into a bathtub.

The autopsy report shows, however, that Denovo. suffered four wounds: in the right side of the chest, right side of the neck, the back of the right shoulder and in the middle of her back. She also suffered "grazing" wounds to her left index finger and the "right fifth finger," the report stated. It does not specify the sequence of the shots or which of the wounds proved fatal.

Results of a toxicology report, also released yesterday, show that Denovo was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

David Beauvais, a Berkeley lawyer who represented Denovo when she was arrested last year for possession of explosives, said the report raises serious questions about the police department's version of events.

"She was twice shot from behind or at least in the back area," said Beauvais, who plans to hire a pathologist to investigate. "This requires an explanation."

University police Chief Victoria Harrison said the results are consistent with the conclusions of investigators, statements by the officer who witnessed the shooting and the analysis of blood-splatter marks at the scene.

Harrison said Denovo's shoulder wound was the result of her swinging the machete across her body. She said the shot in the back probably occurred as she spun around and fell.

"The report reinforced our conclusion that the shooting was in self-defense," Harrison said. "The question 'Did he have to kill her?' is naive. He had two choices-be killed or defend himself."

Beauvais, meanwhile, has filed a written complaint against the university police for allegedly violating procedures in the Field Training Officer's Manual on handling "disturbed persons." He claims officers attempting to apprehend Denovo ignored provisions that they should stay calm, take plenty of time and use as little force as possible. UC police Lieutenant Bill Foley said those rules did not apply because police did not know Denovo had any mental problems.
-Chronicle correspondent T. Christian Miller contributed to this report.
From The San Francisco Chronicle, October 8, 1992 (© The San Francisco Chronicle. Reprinted With Permission.)

On the morning of Tuesday, August 25, Rosebud DeNovo was shot to death by police after entering the University of California Chancellor's mansion. This was after over a year of struggle between Rosebud, both personally and as part of the People's Park movement, and the UC police and administration.

Persecuted in her high school environment for her rejection of all authority and militant anarchist perspective, Rosebud left her home in Lexington, Kentucky, and traveled around the country. At the end of 1990 she settled in Berkeley, which she saw as a good starting point to become active in revolutionary politics. She resided in People's Park for a short time until she moved into a nearby house where many people lived rent-free. A few months later, Rosebud returned to life on the streets.

Rosebud took part in militant demonstrations during the war in Iraq, and was consistently active as people organized against the impending construction in People's Park in the spring of 1991. She was arrested several times during this period, for charges ranging from damaging a bank during anti-war protests, scamming on BART, and sleeping in People's Park. She was active in organizing an anti-July 4th rally in the Park as well as several other events, and participated nightly in the vigil on the People's Park sidewalk. On Telegraph Avenue she tabled for the Green Panthers, a small, loose network of militants for marijuana liberation. She developed a reputation as one of the most hardcore Southside agitators. This, combined with general police harassment of activists and homeless people (Rosebud was both), made her well known by police.

Shortly after the volleyball courts were constructed in the Park, involving several days of street fighting between Park defenders and multiple Bay Area police departments, Rosebud's life took a dramatic turn. While in custody for a minor protest offense, molotov cocktails and incriminating diaries found in a campsite in the Berkeley hills were linked to Rosebud by police, who charged Rosebud, her boyfriend Andrew Barnum, and Timothy Jacobs with heavy explosives charges. Jacobs was or became a police informer and made incriminating statements against Rosebud which the media used to smear her.

The University used the incident to create a large media spectacle hoping to embarrass the People's Park movement, creating front page stories in local dailies. Rosebud, 17 at the time the charges were filed, was transferred to a juvenile facility, where she was deprived of "adult" rights such as bail and visitors.

After two months, a study by the probation department determined that Rosebud should be tried as an adult, and Rosebud was returned to Santa Rita County Jail. Soon her bail was reduced to $10,000, after which her friends posted bond.

Once released, Rosebud moved to the Info Cafe, a radical live/work collective in North Oakland. Rosebud remained active in People's Park and the People's Park Annex, a vacant lot turned campground across from the Park. In her new role as public enemy #1, Rosebud was carefully watched by the police, and subjected to constant harassment. She was rearrested for resisting a police attack a month after her release but bailed out again quickly. Besides actively protesting the clearing of the Annex, and the construction of the University designed Bathroom/guardhouse and the Basketball court in People's Park, Rosebud was active in the attempted construction of the People's Bathroom in the Park.

When Info Cafe disbanded in the spring of 1992, Rosebud and Andy moved to People's Park. Camping wherever at night, they spent their days in the grove just west of the driveway entrance. Increasing numbers of homeless people spent time at the grove, hanging out and talking about revolution-type stuff. Alarmed by the positive community in the grove, and the constant presence of Rosebud, University police kept a close watch on the grove, and dropped by to stare almost daily, arresting someone whenever possible.

Rosebud was especially hounded in the last days of her life, including an arrest in August. On Sunday night, August 23, Rosebud had to move after police came looking for her campsite, after they apparently overheard her describe its location earlier in the day. After the following night, early on Tuesday morning, Rosebud went to campus and broke into the Chancellor's mansion.

Little is known about what happened within the mansion. The Southside activist/ homeless community as well as Rosebud's family in Kentucky are demanding an independent investigation, but even if this takes place much will remain a mystery. We do know that Rosebud, from inside the mansion, called her friend Jim Henry, and said she thought her death was imminent and good-bye to everyone in the Park. We also apparently know that Rosebud was spotted by a UC cop through a window, who drew a gun and told her to drop her weapons. A machete and a knife were later found inside. The cop recognized Rosebud from previous arrests and believed that it was Rosebud who was inside. We have the police account, but the UC police have a continuous history of lies and distortions, as well as violence against activists.

According to police reports, Rosebud entered the mansion, armed with a machete and another knife, by cutting away a grating with a blowtorch, after dying her hair and donning medical gloves. She set off a silent alarm, after which police saw her through a window. Police called the Chancellor and told him to bolt his door, after which the cops moved in and evacuated the Chancellor. The UC police then brought in a K9 unit from the Oakland Police Department to find and capture Rosebud. Then, the police claim, as Rosebud was discovered she attacked the nearest cop, Craig Chew, with a machete knocking him into a bathtub. Chew then shot Rosebud in the hand, and fired three more shots, hitting Rosebud in the heart. An autopsy report is also pending.

Chew had just recently recovered from being shot five times by a burglar. He also had a history of complaints as a Berkeley cop including a sustained complaint by the Police Review Commission and the City Manager of excessive force stemming from a confrontation at the Bear's Lair, a campus pub. He may himself had a "itchy" trigger.

Of course, the police's version changes over time, and some details seem quite improbable, but we can't expect the police to publicly announce an extra-judicial execution. Rosebud was perhaps the People's Park activist they hated and feared the most, and she was trapped without a single possible witness. Calling officers from Oakland to finish the job suggests a fear of UC cops being held personally responsible by the community.

Normal police procedure would suggest encircling the house, followed by tear gas, calling her family or friends, calling a mediation team, even starving her out. Although UC police incompetence is common, the police had a motive and a willingness to kill Rosebud. An organizer of and inspiration to street people. A practitioner of direct action. An angry woman, not afraid to let them know. She had entered the Chancellor's mansion. This time, they decided not to arrest her.
From Slingshot, Harvest Season Issue, 1992. (Reprinted With Permission.)

Editor-So sadly ends the tale of Rosebud A. Denovo. We have seen the rebels without a cause in the '50s, rebels with causes in the '60s and '70s, and rebels without purpose in the '80s and '90s.

When I first returned to the Bay Area 10 years ago, I made a pilgrimage to People's Park. The park that belonged to "the people" had become a mud hole inhabited by Reagan's schizophrenic homeless, drugged-out losers and their dealers, and burnt-out hippies who'd arrived in the same clothes 10 years before.

This was an insult to the memory of the freedom movement born in Berkeley. For people like Rosebud to be willing to die for what has become a rotting corpse of a long dead horse is a sad ending to a sad purposeless struggle.

Was this woman so deluded and grandiose to expect that her death would return the park to it's former "glory"? Sure people rioted and burned, but they have nothing better to do. Come on folks, join the world. People are dying for true freedom as millions of starving refugees shuffle in long lines from place to place because they're not in OPEC. AIDS is devastating the population of the Third World because the church wants unprotected sex and lots of babies. On and on and on.

And there is the brave warrior Rosebud, willing to kill or be killed in Berkeley for God's sakes over a dump cum volleyball court. What a sad statement. What a sad waste.

The rebels without purpose will riot at the drop of a hat in Berkeley. They've become caricatures of themselves. Maybe it's time to bury the dead horse and the poor deluded girl, and join the world, and let People's Park rest in peace.
From The San Francisco Chronicle, August 28, 1992. Letter by Michael S. Eckenrode.

The following article was recently published by Humane Services for the Mentally-crisised, a social/political organization for the better care of the mentally crisised, an organization that Rosebud had a growing interest in. Rosebud wrote it for the Humane Services for the Mentally-crisised newsletter shortly prior to her death. Certainly, Rosebud would want the public to be aware of the abuses people experience in psychiatric facilities.

I was committed to Charter Ridge Hospital at the age of 14 by my parents, about four years ago. I spent nine months there. I was not in there because of any real illness; I was there because (basically) I did not get along with my parents and other authority figures. Because of my age, I could not fight this commitment legally.

I was on a unit which housed about 12 young teenagers at any given time. Everyone was between 11 and 15, and the average length of stay was three months. Out of everyone who was on the unit with me while I was there, only one person was diagnosed with an adult mental illness.

The rules were very strict. We had strict limits on what kind of personal property was allowed and who we could communicate with. No physical contact was allowed, not even a hug. There was a long list of subjects we were not allowed to discuss.

Isolation, which was supposed to be used only when a person was an immediate danger to self or others, was used regularly as a punishment for refusing to follow staff's orders. I was placed in isolation several times. Restraints and drugs were used similarly, although I was never drugged myself.

Almost everyone on the unit was required to take some kind of medication. I was able to refuse to take anything, but I was an exception.

People who were new to the unit or who had attempted to run, or who were considered suicidal, were monitored constantly by staff. I was required, when I first arrived, to sleep in the hallway and was observed even when taking a shower.

Eventually, I managed to get out by going along with the program and convincing staff I would no longer make trouble. Two years later I had two other experiences with mental hospitals, which were worse.

Both of these places were similar to Charter Ridge. Misuse of isolation and restraint was even more common. I knew several people who were physically assaulted by staff. One friend of mine who attempted to run away was strapped down for three days without food or water.

Many people who were committed to these institutions became almost like zombies, with their entire personalities changed. Others became suicidal. Those who emerged relatively psychologically normal were usually able to withstand the mental abuse by uniting with other teenagers there. Fortunately, I was strong enough to remain myself, but these experiences had a lasting, damaging effect on me.
From Slingshot, Harvest Season Issue, 1992. (Reprinted With Permission.)

Never rush blindly into the situation. Take time out to look over the situation, ask questions, find out all you can about the sick person. Call for assistance. Use the City of Berkeley's mental health workers, if appropriate. Delay of time will often serve a double purpose. If the mentally disturbed person is excited, the passage of time will permit the person to calm down. While waiting for the arrival of additional assistance, formulate a plan of action. How will the person be removed? Who shall enter the room? Are the escape routes from the house properly covered? Keep cool, calm, and wait.

1. Use as little force as possible.
2. Ignore verbal abuse.
3. Avoid excitement.
4. Do not deceive.
5. Restrain and calm down.

Chapter One: Rosebud Remembers

Don't cry Andy, don't cry.

Wait Andy, my heart fell into the ocean.

They're going to lock me up.

Don't let them lock me up, Andy.

They said only two years.

I wouldn't live for two years.

It would turn my soul into an empty soup kitchen."

"Hush little sweetie, it'll be all right. Let's go to sleep."

"Andy, I need space tonight. I need to be alone to think."

So he left her in her sleeping bag in the Berkeley Hills and the cops chased her out only an hour later. Only an hour later. What if. Arrival of the What Ifs.

See, when anyone dies, everybody who is left begins to go over the "What if I had done this and what if I had done that?" So what did the death of Rosebud mean and where is she if she didn't believe in heaven? What killed her and who killed her? If it turns out that we all did, how could it have been different?

They are lowering small warriors into the ground. The seasons change every day some years. They are turning freedom into jail terms and all the white rabbits have gone into hiding. Andy said she was scared before she died. He had seen her that night. Only a few hours later she was to break into the UC Chancellor's mansion, determined to be Joan of Arc and Emma Goldman all in one. She and Andy had an on again off again relationship and that night it was on. They were being good to each other, they were being friends. They didn't sleep together that night, Rosebud said she needed a bit of space. Sometimes she needed to be alone for a while, so Andy left. She was terrified because the jail thing was hanging over her. They were threatening her with two years and he said that would have killed her in a different way. She couldn't have stood not being free.

So he said good-bye and she said not a word about what was going to happen later. Maybe she didn't know what she was going to do, maybe it was a last minute desperate thought based on not having gotten any rest at all that night. Because after Andy left, the cops came. They'd found out where she was sleeping in the hills so they came to tell her to get moving. They didn't offer to help her get to a place where she could keep her stuff, they just plain said "leave". If you didn't have a home there was no place left in Berkeley where it was legal to sleep, so if they wanted they could bust you. And they were always after Rosebud because she was a known activist. Even though she was only four foot eleven and ninety seven pounds, they considered her a danger.

I pledge revulsion to the scab

on the United Fates of America

and to the asshole on which it lands

one vacation, under Sod

with racism and injustice

before the Fall.

Tis a gift to be an anarchist

tis a gift to be free

tis a gift to come down

to where you ought to be.

Don't cry, Andy. Don't cry.

Don't cry Mom and Daddy.

Rosebud's with God now.

But Rosebud hadn't believed in God. She was a tiny smiling anarchist with a sense of humor and an Emma Goldman goal. Don't start in about God. Andy, I couldn't tell you what I was going to do because I didn't know what I was going to do. When you left I thought it would be okay, my public defender would get me off and you'd have your check. We'd go someplace where they wouldn't chase us at night. It would be warm and the trees would smell nice. The cops would be far away in Copsville and we'd have smokes and a Walkman with fresh batteries and stuff to read. I said I just needed some space. I didn't know the cops would yank me out at four AM and say "get moving". How could I get moving? I had all my stuff, I had to leave most of it.

Rosebud Abigail Denovo was nineteen years old when she was shot to death. Where were the negotiators, the bull horns, the usual attempts to bring out a suspect known to be in a house that was empty?

Chapter Two: Elisa Remembers

I'm Rosebud's friend. We were both anarchists. We'd go on demonstrations. During one demonstration I went to, there were more than a hundred rounds that went into the crowd and one person was shot so close to the jugular vein that it's very lucky he didn't die. Ten more people were shot in the stomach and other vital organs. We walked around to where this happened. Five people were brought into a corner bar, and they were on top of a pool table. They were bleeding, and the blood was all over the pool table and all over the floor.

The friends of the injured people called the hospital for an ambulance but the ambulance people said, "No, we're not gonna come until the police tell us to." So they called back three different times and nobody came. And so at that point they just took the doors off the hinges and brought the people to the hospital. They just ran with the people on top of these doors and random boards to get them to the hospital. That demonstration was to protest some injustices. Rosebud wasn't with me then.

We were trying to do squats, we'd break into abandoned houses so homeless people could have a place to stay. We also ran a cafe and an info shop in Berkeley called the Long Haul, we'd carry alternative press books like a library.

Did you meet Rosebud at an action? Did you ever live with her? How did you become friends?

OK. She came around to the People's Park in the Spring of '91 and she started to be one of those familiar faces. You know there's like always the same people at the demonstrations and the same people in the park. So she became one of those, and we just became friends. Like, because of that we'd be at an event and we'd be saying, "Oh, no one else came. Only the regular wing nuts are here. And so we'd pretty much be like diehards, you know, we'd show up even if we knew it was gonna be a pathetic event. It's strange, Rosebud was always there.

Rosebud was dedicated...?

Yeah, she was everywhere. People would say, "Oh, I have to give this to Rosebud. She's gonna be at this rally on that demonstration tonight, so they'd give it to her then." You know, that sort of thing.

What was the happiest moment or the happiest day that you ever spent with her?

Well, we had worked together on the anti-Fourth of July smoke-in a couple of years ago. Only she was in jail when it actually happened. So it was kind of sad because, you know, she was looking forward to it, and she'd put a lot of work into it. She'd written and posted the flyers. So she got out of jail and we picked her up, and we were laying on my bed just looking at the ceiling. We were both really tired and half asleep.

Oh gosh, OK. I'll try to get myself together here. We were saying how we felt that we were dissolving, while we were looking at the ceiling, you know. And we were feeling ourselves like really heavy and really light at the same time, and saying, "Oh, you know, we're dissolving." And like saying how much we really needed each other.

And it wasn't just us like two separate people-it was more like, you know, we were the movement. We were part of a group of people with familiar faces who stick up for each other and are struggling together, but are also having fun together. It's like a really great thing, you know, to be acknowledged by your group. But it was really scary too because, well, she'd just gotten out of jail. So there was her depression around that.

She used to call us from jail, and always really early in the morning because she knew we'd be there. And she'd want to know how things were, what was going on and what people were doing, and what was going on in People's Park. You know, "How's the Park?" and that sort of thing.

She would always say, "It's just so good to know that you're there, and to know there's someone you can count on." She knew that she could call us. She saw that most people in jail are isolated and spoke about that a lot. She was meaning it was OK that there was a support group of people like us that she was a part of. And she could rely on that. It was like a feeling of hope and survival and that sort of thing, you know.

So I guess I remember being in my room, you know, having this weird moment. But it was really nice! It was scary, but also really nice. It was scary because, you know, it was kind of like touching the lowest points we might have felt in our life, but also like kind of feeling at the root of what we're like trying to do. It makes me so upset and so sad when I'm thinking about it. Oh!

You can cry. It's OK. I guess the day that you heard what had happened, you must have been pretty shocked.

I was sleeping, and a friend came in to tell us. It was so early. It's almost kind of funny because that's always how she called, you know. If she called from jail we'd be in bed, you know. We'd answer the phone and it would be her. And Peter would be next to me asleep and it was the same way it was when we found out that she died. And he was saying "Rosebud's dead. Rosebud's dead." It didn'tŠI thought I was dreaming. It didn't make sense at all.

You know, she used to always tell us about things she wanted to do. She used to talk a lot of stuff, you know. She was really militant, and I don't know if she was joking. She used to say things like "Oh, this needs to be destroyed over here." And she had really strong language, you know.

OK. So I heard that she was dead. You know, Peter said it, and he had to say it several times since I was looking away so it didn't register at first. And it didn't sound real. I couldn't take it, you know. I couldn't. It couldn't be true because, well, it just couldn't. And I was picturing like, you know, her size and like, you know, me being also small, a little woman too. Her kind of gentleness. It was just sort of crazy, how could it be? I was just thinking of her heart, you know, and I was like picturing how strong and how fragile it was at the same time. It's so weird that she was shot in the heart. And like picturing that, you know, was just so strange. It's kind of hard, kind of unclear right now.

I think Nick had found out on the radio that it happened. It just didn't seem real for a long time and even later it didn't even seem real. I wasn't even crying. I was more in shock than anything. I was just likeŠwrong. I couldn't accept it.

Everyone was going then to the Memorial Demonstration. I wanted to hear it at the park and find out if it was real, you know. I just had to get to the park right away. And then I saw Eli, and we just, you know, hugged each other, and then we went to the place where she used to hang out a lot. And everyone was there. That's when it first started to seem real.

We saw Steve and her boyfriend, Andy. You know, I always was her best friend, at least out here. Some people had said that Rosebud was a wing nut. She wasn't. She was just too bright for her own good. Andy was in bad shape. He was all broken up.

At the memorial a cop insulted her memory and Andy couldn't contain himself. He hit the cop so he landed in jail from August to Christmas.

You know, there's always a few people that are going to take action about what they think is wrong. So the law is always gonna be following them around. See Rosebud was one of them.

What happened was like the whole way her life had been up to that point. You know, her survival depended on the Movement, and it was so urgent that it would take these forms. Like things to fight for her causes. She always had to be on the offensive because, you know, she was always being attacked by the cops.

There's a lot of pain. Everybody I've spoken to has said that even though the newspapers described her as emotionally disturbed, that she was so together. Nobody describes her as a wing nut. She never seemed like that to anybody in all the people that knew her here.

Yes. When I think of Rosebud, I think of, well-you know, she was so driven! All day she'd be walking around doing or planning actions. You know, she had a notebook, and had her list of all the things she was gonna do that day. Most of the times I remember running into her she'd be saying, "I'm going to make this flyer or that poster. I'm gonna go table for this, and mail out those notices." And that's what she was always doing, you know. Her day was always doing things for the movement.

It wasn't like "I have to go to work," or, you know, " I have this love relationship and thus and so is happening in it." She didn't have so much of a personal ego like, you know most people. She didn't think that this stuff mattered much. Her idea of herself and what she needed was so intermingled with revolutionary change. The most important things in her life were revolutionary actions, you know.

Being free and being wild, and being alive was like, the thing you know, that she needed to be. And so, since it wasn't that way, (she was facing jail again) it was gonna be like doing whatever needed to be done to make it that way. Most people wouldn't put themselves in that kind of danger or dedicate all the time to these projects, like Rosebud.

So you want to know how she was-she'd say things like, "Oh, I need a jacket." Like she would just mention it in the circle of all us friends that were, you know, in her struggle.

Then she'd wait and it would come to her. Maybe it wouldn't be a specially pretty jacket. But she didn't really care about being pretty anyway, you know. She had this intense sense of purpose. She wasn't a drifter.

Chapter Three: Everyone Remembers I

This act became the event that would inflame People's Park activists forever. It was the most Rosebud could do.

Oh Rosebud, were you Orson Welles' sled in Citizen Kane or the actual flower itself for which the sled was named? Memory being the long ice crusher of thought, the complex bubble of past events that break into the new moments of our lives.

I, Rosebud, who believed in no heaven or hell, nothing but the one encountered here, want to tell you, Mama, Daddy and Andy, that I'm in heaven. Emma Goldman's here, making gingersnaps for poor Leon Czolgoz who shot President McKinley, and there's some really rich people waiting on us hand and foot, just like Yukon Hannibal in the Park said they would.

Tell my friends in the park that although they thought they shot me, I'm still there.

Go past the grove into the open space and then at the side closest to Amoeba Records, there'll be some plum trees. Down past where Jim Henry and my other friends planted this memorial garden for me where the red petunias made it but the blue and white ones wilted.

Check out the Free Box. Every time UC tore it down, I'd start to build it again.

Okay, what's the big deal about People's Park of Berkeley?

It's only the origin of the Free Speech Movement in America. In 1969 thousands of people marched down Telegraph Avenue chanting "We want the Park". In 1991 when the cops, on UC orders, started taking down the Free Boxes, the word went out again.

Remember when you were five my child, and told us how politically incorrect we were. When you were nine my daughter, and decided to step so far inside your mind to that place where we called to you but you never answered.

When you were reaching for the liberty of puberty and we panicked and obeyed the shrink. We didn't know the psych unit would drive you crazy. We didn't know the stuff you saw would make you quoth the raven nevermore.

They told us they could help our family so unto them we gave our only begotten daughterŠ -hoping to undo the troubleŠ -hoping to tame Rosebud Abigail Denovo. You had named yourself so that the initials spelled RAD.

Sweet smiling jaunty little figure, missed forever like a dark stain of pain on a firefly's wing. Broken wing.

Sing for this sad craving in my gut of worrying, wondering, what went wrong what did I do? Backtracking, pondering, was there something, anything, what could have averted it? What kind of happy life could you have had?

Rosebud left her home in Lexington Kentucky when she was a young teenager and journeyed around the country. She stayed in Berkeley first at the end of 1990. She was a wanted child, her father taught at a small college. They didn't understand her being so different.

We didn't understand your rebellions. We listened to the voice of authority. We worried when we visited you because yes it did seem like a jail, that hospital unit. We thought you were sick and doctors could help you. Like you had appendicitis or something. The doctors said you needed help.

Rosebud settled in Berkeley because she had read a lot and what she had read made her decide to become an anarchist. There were lots of anarchists in Berkeley and many of them were fighting for the right to sleep in People's Park. After living for few months in a rent free house, she moved back to life on the streets.

During the Gulf War she took part in lots of demonstrations. When there were anti-war marches, she was always there.

In the Spring of 1991 she helped guard the Free Boxes and was active in the actions against plans to build a volleyball court and yuppify People's Park. During this time she'd been arrested for sleeping in People's Park, spare changing, and other minor charges. She helped organize an anti July 4th rally at the park and was there every night at the People's Park vigil. She also helped man a table for the Green Panthers. The cops knew her well. Her sarcastic wit bugged them, though her voice was usually gentle.

Some of the cops are O.K.

Some of the cops are scary as hell.

One of them handcuffed my friend and then stuck his hand in her blouse and did more, much more.

He did that to some other women and it got reported but he's still on the force.

Who decides who has the power?

I guess I wanted to show them how I felt.

Chapter Four: William Remembers

Rosebud was a writer. I've seen samples of her essay writing, and she was an excellent writer. She wrote great flyers too. Well, to digress a little bit, UC hired some allegedly homeless people to work on the pathways at People's Park. They weren't really homeless, it turns out. Most of them were crack heads. But anywayŠshe wrote this flyer entitled "Why Not To Work on the Pathways at People's Park". And it was, you know, a very articulate leaflet. I mean, detailed, and ran down all the reasons why you shouldn't work on the pathways.

What were you feeling when you heard of her death?

Surprise. A great deal of sadness. I was living up in Shasta County. The first time I heard about it was on KCBS radio. And the first report I heard the first day was that she was shot in the bedroom, rather that she was shot in the bathroom of The Chancellor's house. And the angle they were playing up was the fact that the cop had sustained, I think it was either three or five complaints, PRC complaints when he was a member of the Berkeley police.

The next day the story had an entirely different media spin on it. And also the whole circumstances had changed too. The second day the story had changed to-the cop was in the bathroom, and Rosebud was outside of the bathroom, which was a total flip-flop in the twenty-four hour period. And they were playing up the aspect of Rosebud's mental state when she was a teenager, I mean, earlier when she was, like, you know, twelve and stuff, rather than I think the nineteen that she was when she got murdered. And so I thought it was rather interesting that, within a twenty-four hour period, the facts of the case and the whole media spin put on it did such a flip-flop.

So I immediately started getting suspicious because I had talked with her and Andy, her boyfriend, about a week before the incident happened and she didn't appear depressed to me. In fact, I don't ever recall her appearing depressed. If she was, she certainly didn't show it to me. She always maintained a rather upbeat attitude, as far as I could tell. So I was quite shocked at the reports of her death. And, like I said, the story did a flip-flop from the first day to the second day about her. First she's in the bathroom; the next the cop was in the bathroom. On the first day, you know, there's the cop who's trigger-happy because he's been shot himself by someone else, and the next day they're talking all this slander stuff about Rosebud. I immediately got suspicious, and I got down here, I think, the following Saturday after it happened, and started to talk to people about it. And the story just did not add up.

I actually believed the story that they were promulgating the first day, about how Rosebud was in the bathroom and the cop broke the door down in on her, and how he was trigger-happy because he had previously been shot five times in another incident, and how he had all those PRC complaints sustained against him.

So the fact that he's had any complaints sustained against him is real significant because you've only got one chance in twenty of getting your complaint against Berkeley police for policeman's conduct, sustained.

The first thing that comes to my mind was early one morning. It was about maybe five o'clock in the morning.

It was during the Free Box trouble, when the UC police tore, I think it was like six or seven free boxes in a row a couple of years ago. And every time they'd tear down a Free Box, we'd just build another one, and every time they tore down a Free Box, people would bring twice as many clothes. Till eventually the whole park was just strewn with free clothes. You know, every time they'd tear down a Free Box it would make the news. So people would bring more clothes. In fact, there was an annex Free Box up the street. Anyway, I can't remember which Free Box it was-one of the later ones. I think it was maybe Free Box five or six.

I was there one night, guarding the Free Box, and it got down to maybe only one or two other people around. One of them was Rosebud. The cops came about five in the morning, and I asked the other person to go to the phone booth down at the corner of Telegraph and Haste to make a phone call, to call people and tell them, you know, "The cops are attacking the Free Box again."

And it was just me and Rosebud, and here's like, you know, uh, maybe a half dozen police cars, maybe a couple of dozen cops, a big garbage truck, and a whole bunch of heavy equipment and stuff to tear down this Free Box. And I'm thinking, "Well, OK. It's five in the morning. There's only two people here. The third person, subsequently making the phone call, got arrested so he couldn't really do anything.

And then I went back up to the Free Box. And I told Rosebud, "Well, you know, it's five in the morning, and there's like three dozen cops here and just two of us. Let's get the hell out of here!" And she said, "Oh no. I wanna stay, you know, and see what's gonna happen." I didn't want to be there. I was just about to bug out. But I didn't feel cool bugging out and leaving her there by herself.

So I stuck around, though I was scared.

One of us had just been arrested, and there was like I said, maybe two or three dozen cop-UC cops, as opposed to like real cops-and me and Rosebud. But she said, "Oh, no. Let's not leave." You know, she didn't show the slightest bit of fear or anything. She may have been afraid, but she didn't show it. And that's just an instant which comes to my mind about her. So she was brave. Uh. You have to give her that.

As far as the fatal day, they obviously should have maybe shot in some tear gas, or just waited around, tried to starve her out, turn off all the utilities and electricity and everything, and just waited around. In fact, the University of California police has a book of rules and regulations which, of course, they totally ignored. In those rules and regulations they have specific guidelines for handling allegedly mentally disturbed persons. And those guidelines say, "Remain calm and try to wait the person out," which they clearly failed to do in this case. So I feel that they went in there with the intention of murdering her.

And I'm not gonna speculate on how she got in there or why because it can't help now. Allegedly the Chancellor and his wife were in there at first, but once they were out safely, then there was no longer a threat-except to property, and we should value a life a lot more than property.

They used her breaking in as a justification in murdering her. I've lived in Berkeley for over fifteen years now, and I've seen a lot of wing nuts. I've seen enough wing nuts to where if I see one, I recognize them. And Rosebud was clearly not a wing nut. As I said earlier, she was very intelligent. And that's basically all I can say about that. I mean, she definitely was not crazy. Like I said, there are a lot of crazy people in Berkeley, so you've got a lot of things to compare with.

Cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder, like I said, is the word that comes to mind. That's all there is to it. They thought she was a threat to them.

Chapter Five: Everyone Remembers II

Right after the volleyball courts went into the park there were days of street fighting between People's Park defenders and assorted cops. Rosebud was arrested again for sleeping in the park. While she was there police found The Anarchist's Cookbook, firecrackers, chemicals and detonators at a campsite in the hills that they traced to her. So they charged Rosebud, Andrew, her boyfriend, and Timothy, with trying to make bombs. At the time these charges were filed, Rosebud was seventeen so she was sent to Juvenile Hall.

She wasn't allowed visitors.

That last night was like a vivid dream of how it had been when they sent me to Juvenile Hall.

I'm always afraid of the dark.

Please don't let them send me to jail.

Juvenile Hall is jail.

I am in jail.

I am dead.

I'm seventeen and they have already killed me.

I'm seventeen and I'm dead.

Who killed me when I was twelve?

When I was six I died and the world hung by a thread of spit.

When I was six months old, before I grew up and crawled back into the womb where I am now, I was joined to Emma Goldman at the hip like a Siamese twin.

I am an anarchist.

The first amendment is the one they break when they arrest you for putting up a poster at a demonstration;

The second is the one they break when they caress you for being female while they handcuff you and fail to read you your rights.

The third is the tears they seek when they harass you for huddling under an awning in the rain.

The fourth is the mistake they make when they think I Rosebud, coming from an ancient line of warriors, battered but still smiling, will take the bruising of America anymore just lying down.

"It was this kind of thinking made me love her," say about nineteen street people and People's Park regulars simultaneously. Andy also, the one whose love she returned in the last weeks. Teddy who loved her too, and treasured her letters.

After two months they decided to try her as an adult. After she was returned to Santa Rita jail her bail was reduced to $10,000 and her friends posted the bond.

Once she was out of jail, Rosebud moved to the Info Cafe, a radical commune in North Oakland. She stayed active in the People's Park movement and she and Andy pitched a tent in People's Park Annex, a vacant lot formerly occupied by a burned out hotel. It had been taken over by homeless people a few weeks before.

The cops were always watching Rosebud. A month after she got out of Santa Rita she was re-arrested for resisting a police attack. Her friends again bailed her out.

She helped begin to build the People's Bathroom in the park, but cops ripped it up as soon as construction was begun.

When the Info Cafe had a problem in the spring of 1992 Rosebud and Andy moved to People's Park. They spent their days in the grove west of the driveway entrance. There were lots of homeless people who spent time there but University cops kept a close watch on the grove. They stopped there everyday, making arrests on small pretexts. During what was to be the last few days of her life Rosebud was almost constantly harassed by the police.

Dream or nightmare? I won't ever sleep. I was lying there worrying about the case when they shone their flashlights in my eyes. "Get moving, Denovo," they said. It wasn't a great night for trying to find a new place to sleep. Not many stars.

Chapter Six: Jim Henry Remembers

For a little while there I was uh, sort of her boyfriend. It's basically what I was itching to be all along. She had the sweetest smile, and the sweetest laugh. She had skin like velvet too-so soft and smooth. I loved touching it.

I'd said, "What is it about you that makes me want to do all this stuff for you?" She said, "Because I'm so cute, charming, and female."

She was all those things. I'm kind of new at all of this, so in the last couple of years I've learned quite a lot, and much of what I've learned, she taught me.

And we had solid political agreement. We were definitely pulling our oars in the same direction. She'd keep wondering if it was the fact that I was attracted to her that was making me agree with her politically, or whether I actually agreed with her, and I kept having to reassure her that, yeah, I was sincere in my political beliefs, and we did have actual political beliefs that were independent of any feelings that I might have had for her.

In everything she did, politics was very much in the upper part of her mind.

She was seventeen at the time, although I didn't know it.

When you just looked at the picture just now, you said how beautiful she was.

Yeah. She was.

When you first saw her, what ran through your mind-the very first time?

Uhhh. Let's see. I think I was just starting to come on to a hit of acid at that time. This guy that I'd met at this Fest in the City on Earth Day in '91, introduced me to her, and told me she was working on doing a rally for July Fourth. And I told her I was with Freedom Fighters which is another organization. It's been around longer that the Green Panthers. What they do is they go all across the country doing rallies. So she asked was I interested in co-sponsoring this event and working with her on it. And I said,"Sure." I figure, "Finally, my way in." And that's what it ultimately turned out to be.

This guy with the earpiece I was talking to at the Washington smoke-in back in 1980, I was asking him how could I get involved in all of that, and he goes, "Do the work. You'll get the recognition."

So for the last couple of years now, I've been doing the work and getting the recognition.

You knew the other people that were at the Info cafe?

Uhhh. Well, let's see. Mike L. was. This other guy named Jerry was. Unfortunately he's back in school in Ohio now. Otherwise I'd have him talk to you.

Did you ever see Rosebud cry?

Yeah.

What was that about?

I was never sure. Because it was like way late at night, and she just started crying and all I could do was hold her and try to comfort her. I kept trying to get her to tell me what was wrong, but she wouldn't. I guess there were just some things she wanted to keep to herself-keep private.

You felt she was in a lot of pain that last few weeks?

Uhhhh. Not really a lot of pain exactly. She had a lot on her mind, a lot going on.

Andy said she was really scared. She was scared of the two-year possible sentence hanging over her. That she was not, he said, a person who could be locked up. She had to be free.

Mmm. Yeah. She wouldn't have gotten along real well in prison. God! The way some of those tan bellies are in a prisonŠ She'd of had all kinds of fun.

What's a tan belly?

OK. A blue belly wears blue, you know. Cops on the street, they wear blue. Uhhhh. Highway Patrol and pretty much all correction guards, uhh, they wear khaki. So they're tan bellies. Plain clothes cops are plaid bellies.

To what do you attribute or what do you think caused all this? Could something have been done by somebody else that could have avoided all that happened?

I kind of think the roots of all of this go clear back into her childhood. I don't know if there was anything really traumatic that occurred in her earlier childhood to make her so radical or if she was just so intelligent that she could see the truth behind all the government bullshit and she wanted to do something about it. I think that as long as we have an oppressive status system, an oppressive money economy, and people who are all too eager to tell other people how to live, we are going to get people who are so unwilling to put up with having their lives managed and regulated that they're prepared to make any sacrifice to re-establish freedom.

Well, that's saying society caused it. Just before you said that you felt that the roots of it went back to her childhood. Now let's assume that her parents loved her, (I have every indication to believe that's true). I asked Andy and he's not somebody who could be bullshit to. I'm sure her parents loved her, thought they were doing the best for her by obeying authority, thought they were helping. Beyond their control was a health care system that is about as fucked up as any other system in this country. And instead of it helping, unfortunately, it hurt. So let's stop blaming parents who were really doing the best that they could in every direction, even assuming that she was just a rebellious child who stood out in an upper middle class quiet academic kind of suburb. Even assuming that, I think we have to figure that when her parents thought they were getting her expert help, they were trapped in a system which is often harmful. And in this case, it was evidently was, because she came out feeling really traumatized, really bitter. And found it hard to readjust. They had done what they thought was right. They weren't being punitive. They were trying to help her.

Did Rosebud ever talk about having been in a psych unit, and things that made her bitter about it?

She never really went into any detail about it. I'm trying to remember what little she did say.

What would be her main subject in conversation with her, when you were talking to her. What was there about her, apart from her looks, that drew you to her?

Oh. Her radical viewpoint. She was highly radical, politically. I really responded to that.

Where do you think that came from?

A lot of her reading, I'd say. She and I have read a lot of the same books. Like Orwell's 1984, Ira Loveman's This Perfect DayŠ She also read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series. Umm. She's also read books by people I never heard of. There was one that was pretty much her bible, called Catechism of a Revolutionary. I've been sort of trying to find that, and it's a very rare book.

You've been spending just about every Saturday and Sunday trying to get a memorial to her cause. What are some of your experiences in terms of what people say to her? Do people stop and talk about her?

Sure A lot of people come up and ask what this whole archive is about, who was Rosebud, what happened? And when I explain to them about how she was murdered by the police, they show a lot of awareness and sympathy. Although some people have been a good deal less than pleasant. Some guy came up to me and said if she'd come into his house, he'd have shot her thirty or forty times.

Do you get many reactions like that?

No, that's been the only one like that so far. Some people kind of snort derisively as they go walking past. Most people, of course, don't even break stride to look at me. They think I'm just another panhandler, which I suppose I am.

But this is not for yourself. This is for a memorial purpose.

Mm-hm.

There was riot or a demonstration-I'm not sure what to call it. I was away when people in the Park, found out that she had been shot. I was told there was a demonstration which turned into a riot. Could you tell me something about that demonstration? Was there a riot? Were the police just calling it a riot? I get different answers from different people.

Well, there was a demonstration. We met in the Park. There were some speeches and then we moved to the Avenue.

Everybody, in a sense, has their own ideas. But I would really appreciate your fix on what happened afterwards.

You had told me that she telephoned you, but that the call was so brief and strange that you were almost...well, you were in shock. And you didn't know what to do actually, so you went into work, frightened because you had no way of communicating. The park friends had no beepers or phones to communicate with each other. What happened then? What were the events of the day of her death, starting with the phone call that you received, and your reaction to it. And then, the later events of that day up to whoever organized the demonstration, going on through the demonstration. I think you would be telling something important because the events of that day were very critical to the supporters of the Park, people who agreed with what she was trying to do. There's been a lot of misinformation about it. I read in the media that there was a very violent demonstration, where stores were looted and cars put on fire and so on, by supporters of Rosebud. Is that true? But tell it, in sequence, starting from that morning. Starting literally from the phone call.

Yeah, that's not a day I'm likely to forget. ButŠI get up in the morning, get dressed, brush my teeth, shave, all of that. And I'm just ready to walk out the door when I get the phone call. So we go through the phone call-it takes about thirty seconds. And so, I go out my bedroom door, and my roommate's coming through the hall because she'd like to know who the hell's calling at six-thirty in the morning. And I tell her about the phone call, at least to the extent of saying that it was from Rosebud, and it was a very strange phone call.

What had Rosebud said to you?

She goes,"Hey, this is Rosebud. I called to say good-bye. I'm at The Chancellor's place. They're going to shoot me. Go tell the people in the Park." And that was it. Boom.

I was told later that about five minutes after we'd hung up, she called my roommate's son to ask if I'd left the house yet or not. He said,"Yeah." And she went, "Good." So it's like she thought I was on my way.

Could she have thought you were going to tell the people in the Park?

That's probably what she was intending. Yeah. The thinking part of my brain kind of shut down at that point. I seemed to be going on auto-pilot. So I went out, crawled into my bus, rode it into work, listening intently to the radio for any news reports. And as I'm going over the Bay Bridge (this is like a quarter to eight) that's when I hear the first word that there's been an incident on the Berkeley campus, and a woman's body been found. So I think, "Oh, shit!" because I know who's body that isŠ"

Then someone drove me over here to Berkeley, and that's when I joined in the demonstration. It was already going on about the time I arrived. There were people with mobile sound systems. People were giving speeches. Then we started marching onto the campus, yelling, "Murderers and assassins!" at the top of our lungs. "No justice-no peace!" "Fuck the police!" That sort of thing.

Then we had a little demonstration on the lawn in front of the campus cop shop. Then I heard that the police were looking for me because they wanted to talk to me about Rosebud's phone call. Somehow the rumor had gotten started that I had a tape of that conversation. But as I'm fairly allergic to being talked to by the police, I figured that was a good time to cut out and go home, which is what I did. SoŠI missed out on any subsequent events.

What happened during the demonstration? What was it like? Who had begun it? Or had it just spontaneously erupted here and there?

I think it was fairly spontaneous. The case of everybody saying, "Hey, let's go meet in the Park." So we met in the Park, and probably talked, and the sound system was gotten together, and people got up and started speaking, and matters simply progressed.

Did you feel pain that you hadn't been able to get in touch with the other people or go down there and try to talk to her through a loudspeaker? Andy felt if there had only been some way of all the friends getting there in time, maybe they could have persuaded the police to negotiate.

That probably would be true. Unfortunately, there simply was not time, because she was dead within half an hour of that phone call.

So, no matter what you had done it would have been to late. So they did not wait and try to contact people who knew her, to negotiate?

No. They could have called her lawyer. They could have called her parents. They wouldn't have been able to call me since I was out of touch with anybody then. But they could have called somebody! Shit! Their own hostage negotiation team, if nothing else. Except that Rosebud didn't have any hostages, so they probably figured it wasn't in their jurisdiction.

Some of your friends said that as soon as they knew it was Rosebud, they were not going to do anything helpful. They really wanted to get her because they were afraid she was a revolutionary.

Mm-hm. The police definitely had it in for her.

So to be a revolutionary now in 1993, what's that really mean?

To take your life into your own hands, is what it means.

During the demonstration did you see stores being looted or cars being burned?

No. All the images that I have that I saw on TV and that I've seen since, all seemed to have people just marching and cops pushing them back with billy sticks. I didn't see anything else. But in the media I read that all this other stuff happened. So I wondered which was true. Well, there's probably a certain element of truth to all of them. The media will, of course, try to put a spin on matters that are advantageous to the ruling class. You know, that is their function. To facilitate the authority of the ruling class.

Well, do you think there were stores looted that day, and if so, were the looters regulars of the Park, or people from other places who just came in and took advantage of the situation?

We began getting a lot of that last Summer. I recall there were some incidents right around Labor Day. Kids coming in from other parts of the East Bay, and generally going around crashing shit. The demonstration that I saw was peaceful. I have no way of knowing about what happened after I left except second hand.

OK. So about what time did the demonstration end that day? Did it actually end or did it just kind of wind down?

Umm. Must have been around seven-thirty, maybe going on eight, by the time things started unwinding enough that I felt it was a good time to take off. Everybody else probably went back up into the Park.

What happened with you that night?

I got a couple of phone calls. One was from this one guy I've known for some years. I'd taken Rosebud over to meet him on one occasion last summer. And he invited me over to his place. I got together with him a week after she was killed, which was payday. So we sat around, toking up, and talking and we must have talked for a good couple of hours.

Did you talk about Rosebud?

Oh yeah. Definitely.

What were some of the things that were going on in your mind then?

I was just totally despondent. He could see that, the minute I walked in. He just saw waves of despondency shimmering away from me like heat waves on a asphalt top, you know. It was a rotten summer. I was very broken-hearted at that point.

Did you talk to any of your other friends about it?

A little bit. Not very much. I was ashamed of having fugued out when she called. I guess our individual wounds needed a little bit of time to heal. The next night I went over to this friend's house in San Francisco. Rosebud and I had gone over there on several occasions. And it kind of helped, talking to her, although I was pretty late getting home. It wasn't until that night that I was first able to start crying, that I come out of shock enough to cry.

What made you start a memorial archive?

Well, that got suggested to me by somebody else. Jonathan Montague-I'm not sure if you've met him yet

What happened then? Were there other kinds of protests or things being written? Did you connect up with anybody? That was the time that you left town, wasn't it, because you were kind of worried about being questioned by the cops.

No, I can't say I really left town, not at that point.

Then if you were there, what kinds of things were happening as a result of Rosebud's death?

Several things were happening .We did a rally for her on August 30th, Saturday. We had a rally at Haste and Telegraph, and my people were there. A lot of people got up and spoke. I got up also. At one point in my little speech, I reminded the cops of the Klingon proverb which states that revenge is a dish that is best served cold. But nobody actually took revenge. Andy got upset, I gather. When he hit the cop who was calling Rosebud names, he landed in jail immediately. He stayed there from August 25th to December 25th. So the most immediate result was Andy landing in jail.

Meantime, a columnist named Brenda Payton came out with a truly awful story. She's someone else who should be grateful I'm not into male violence against women. Otherwise you knowŠa little slapology. I wanted to shake up her head, and make it work better.

I think that was in the Oakland Tribune. Were any of the other newspapers into the same kind of thing?

They all made quite a bit about Rosebud's presumed mental instability, dysfunction, call it what you will. That was the basic theme they harped upon, that Rosebud was a mentally unstable person who should have been kept locked up in a psych ward the first time. All this media distortion in action.

Do you remember, Jim, any other particular incident when you were with Rosebud that was what you can call memorable in that something in your heart responded to what she was?

Mmm. Well, there was that whole first two-week period when I started hanging out with her so much.

What was she like?

Quiet, a lot of the time. Deep into her own thoughts.

When was that?

In June. Last two weeks of June.

Did anything change then? What was the pattern from June to August in terms of how it was for you?

Kind of up and down. Sometimes she'd hook back up with Andy and spend a lot of time with him. Then she'd break up with him and she'd be spending a lot of time with me. She never went to bed with me though.

If you met her parents tomorrow, if they came to Berkeley and you met them, would there be anything that you could say that could help them in any way? I feel for them. She may have been angry at them sometimes but most young people are angry at their parents sometimes.

I really don't know what I could say. I mean, their pain has got to be so much deeper than mine. I lost a friend. They lost a daughter. It's gotta cut a whole lot deeper. I don't know. Maybe I'd just give them a reassuring hug.

Now there is another mystery. I get different points of view from different people. Some people said that in 1990 when Rosebud first came, People's Park was peaceful enough that they could sleep there. They spoke of the time when they put up tents before the ten o'clock curfew. And that people were into helping each other. And it was more like a friendly sixties hippie commune. Then, when the curfew happened and the Free Box was first ripped out, all that other stuff started going down. Had you ever slept in the Park and not been hassled?

No.

It was Andy's contention and a couple of other people that I've spoken to that in 1990 it was relatively safe to sleep in the Grove in People's Park-that you could even put up tents if you wanted and people were helping each other.

Yeah, that's quite probably true.

And then, at the time of the curfew, all the hard drug dealing came in. I don't know. I just don't know. It seemed like Rosebud, a young girl who had been hurt, who had been raped, would not sleep in a place where she was afraid, and Andy's description of the Park in 1990 was that it was a safe place to sleep, especially if you had a tent.

Mm-hm

Then why did U.C. and the cops say that there was heavy dangerous drug-dealing going on, and therefore the park had to close at night?

Well, the only hard drug dealing I was ever saw was like in the mid-eighties. And between then and this one concert that I went to in October of 1990, I'd just never really gone up to the Park, so I didn't see any of that.

When was it that you decided on the plan of the memorial archives for Rosebud?

I don't know. February, March, something like that.

And part of that was making the garden in People's Park?

Yeah. Actually, that was Bob Sparks' idea, and I think it was a good one.

But I saw you really working at it, and Bob too. I saw everybody working at it.

Yeah. A lot of energy got put into it.

At one point, when the memorial was being planted on Earth Day, one of the people who was helping, took off his clothes and continued to work on the planting. What was your feeling about that?

I don't know-kinda casual indifference. If he wants to take his clothes off, let him take his clothes off. What the hell do I care?

Chapter Seven: Autopsy Part I

Autopsy performed upon the body of Rosebud Abigail Denote aka: Laura Marie Miller at the Coroner's bureau, 480 4th Street, Oakland, California, on August 25, 1992, at 10:25 a.m.
Anatomical Diagnoses

1) multiple gunshot wounds
A) entrances-neck, torso, right hand, left hand
B) EXITS - TORSO
C) BULLETS RECOVERED - TORSO
D) PERFORATING DEFECTS - TRACHEA, CONNECTIVE TISSUE AND MUSCULATURE OF NECK, CONNECTIVE TISSUE AND MUSCULATURE OF TORSO, RIGHT PLEURAL CAVITY, RIGHT LUNG, PERICARDIAL SAC, HEART, LEFT PLEURAL CAVITY, RIBS, THORACIC VERTEBRAL COLUMN, SPINAL CORD, RIGHT HUMERUS, MUSCULATURE AND CONNECTIVE TISSUE OF LEFT HAND, PHALANX OF LEFT INDEX FINGER, MUSCULATURE AND CONNECTIVE TISSUE OF RIGHT HAND, PHALANGES OF RIGHT FIFTH FINGER
E) BILATERAL HEMOTHORACES
F) HEMOPERICARDIUM
2) VISCERAL ORGAN ISCHEMIA.

CAUSE OF DEATH: MULTIPLE GUNSHOT WOUNDS

External Examination

The body is that of a white female, appearing the stated age of 19 years There is a Coroner's identification tag present on the left big toe. The body is 63 inches long and weighs 107 pounds.

The body is presented in a supine position, with the head turned towards the right shoulder. Both arms lie alongside the body. The body is nude. Paper bags cover the distal aspect of each arm.
The following items of clothing are presented with the body at the time of autopsy exam: (None of these items are present on the body.)
1) A brown paper bag. Written on one side of it is the word "gloves" and written on the other side are the words "from hands". Examination of the contents of this bag reveals two rubber gloves. They appear to be partially turned inside out. In one glove there is a linear defect extending from the wrist outward to the finger area. In addition, on the same glove there is an open defect that has almost severed the index finger part of the glove from the remainder of the glove. This defect corresponds to an open defect on the index finger of the left hand. On the other glove there is an open defect involving the fifth finger part measuring about 3/4 inch in greatest dimension close to the knuckle part of the glove. This corresponds to an open defect on the right hand. Both gloves are discolored with what appears to be blood. In addition, there are focal areas of yellow-brown discoloration of the gloves, most obvious in the finger areas. There is also some black discoloration in focal areas on both gloves, most obvious in the finger areas and to a certain extent on the palmar surfaces. (These gloves are not touched at the time of autopsy exam but are handled with forceps.)
2) Knee-length, blue Levi-type pants. They have been cut from the waist down both legs. No belt is present. There is an undone button and buttonhole at the waist in the front midline. These are intact at the time of autopsy exam as is also an open zipper. There is a scant amount of what is probably blood-staining of the pants. Some is present on the left lateral side in focal areas, roughly in the hip area. There is a scant amount present just below the right groin area. There is some vague black discoloration of the pants over the right front side and also down around the left knee and distal aspect of the left lower pant leg.

Present in the left front pocket is a square-shaped piece of material which is black with an extensive complex white design on it. This measures approximately 15 inches along each edge.

The two rear pockets are empty.

Attached to a belt loop (right front side, adjacent to the front button on the pants) by a piece of stainless steel wire (perhaps a paper clip) is a small black pouch with the word "Salem" written on it in green letters. In addition, on the front of the pouch is a digital-type clock and the time listed on the clock at the time of examination is 18:53. This pouch has a zipper over the top. Present inside the pouch is a square-shaped piece of bright pink silk-type material. it also appears to be a pouch of some type, although at the time of autopsy exam it is empty.
3) A pair of low-cut, lace-up, off-white Reebok shoes. The laces of both shoes are tied. The shoes are dirty and have focal areas of black material present on them.
4) A cut pair of off-white bikini-type underpants. They are tattered, especially about the waist area. There is a scant amount of red-brown discoloration in the crotch area.
5) A pair of white cotton socks. One sock has been either partially cut or torn from the superior ankle area roughly down to the heel area. Each sock has two red circumferentially oriented stripes about the ankle areas. Both socks are quite dirty. Worn, open defects are present in both heels. There is a scant amount of plant material present on the surface of one of the socks.

There is blood over the following areas of the body:
1) Small amounts of blood present about the face. Much of this is present on the right side of the head which is adjacent to the autopsy table. There are scant amounts in focal areas lateral to the