Berkeley Police Cut Supply Lines to Tree-Sitters

University police began making the (maybe) final push to remove tree-sitters from an 18-month protest at UC-Berkeley this morning, the Daily Californian reports. By 11 a.m. at least 40 officers and arborists were at the scene, attempting to cut down supply lines and structures that the sitters use to travel between trees.

In response, the activists—who have been protesting the expansion of an athletic facility in an oak grove since December 2006—threw bottles of excrement at officers at the scene. "You're treating these protesters like criminals," said the protest's leader of the school's tactics of cutting supplies.

The university said it has no plans of removing tree-sitters today. "How it unfolds depends on the people in the trees," a Berkeley spokesman said. "We hope there's an outbreak of common sense."

No. Such. Luck?