Last year, I wrote about the protests against the genocide in Gaza at the University of Texas at Austin, and the brutal crackdown on these peaceful rallies by state and local police. One of the victims of this crackdown was Rich Heyman, a UT Austin professor who lost his job after he was charged with “obstructing” the Troopers as they arrested students, a misdemeanor.
New video provided by Rich shows how a trooper came out of nowhere to shove him as he protested their violent treatment of students. Days later, Heyman was arrested and got fired, too. I wrote about the incident for Austin Free Press in a new article, out today:
Reporter’s Notebook: Kit O’Connell reflects on pro-Palestinian protests on UT-Austin’s campus last spring. Their commentary is accompanied by a video of the incident never before released to the public.
On a blistering April day I arrived at the University of Texas at Austin last year, after receiving a tip that more Gaza protests were breaking out at UT’s South Mall. I didn’t know then that a well-regarded professor whom I previously interviewed was about to have a life-changing altercation that would land him in jail and end his UT career.
Five days before, students had gathered in that grassy, open area to oppose Israel’s bombing campaign. Dozens of Department of Public Safety State Troopers, under orders from Governor Greg Abbott and with support of then-UT Austin president Jay Hartzell, had aggressively broken up the protest. Then, on April 29, the students were back; this time, they planned to pitch tents and form a protest encampment.
Richard Heyman had taught urban geography at UT Austin since 2006. In recent interviews for the Austin Free Press, Heyman had shared his skeptical views with me on Austin’s HOME ordinance, drastic building-code reforms that the city council was then fast tracking to approval.
