Details are sketchy, but police in Sacramento have started to arrest members of Arnieville, the group of disabled activists who set up a camp on a median along Adeline Street this summer.
The group went up to the Capitol today to protest against proposed budget cuts to programs that send assistants into the homes of the disabled. Without the assistance, disabled people will no longer be able to live independently and will have to go into nursing homes at a much greater cost to the state, according to the activists.
Members of the group, officially known as CUIDO, or Community United In Defense of Olmstead (the act that authorized in-home health care) met at the North Berkeley Bart station this morning and took buses to Sacramento for a 1 pm protest.
Some of the protesters are now blocking the intersection of 11th and L street in front of the Capitol Building, according to CUIDO’s Twitter feed. Police announced the group was an “unlawful assembly,” and ordered them to disperse. Police have destroyed the group’s paper mache statue of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and have started to arrest people, according to the tweets.
The group is also posting live audio feeds of the protests.
UPDATE 5:15 pm: About 20 protesters were arrested, according to the Sacramento Press. Photo of some of those arrested:
