Michael Moore was scheduled to speak today October 12th, at the UCLA tennis center to a crowd of UCLA students facilty and staff., the general public being excluded. When I approached the line to gain enterance into the Tennis center, in order to get a seat for the talk, I was told to present my ID along with my ticket. I was hesitant to comply having witnessed a young woman get by with only her UCLA vanpool card and another woman who had a print out of a class schedule being turned away. I inspected my ticket for any notice requiring you to show your ID at the and found none, however the ticket did clearly state no banners nor signs would be allowed. Upon entering the Center I approached a gentleman who claimed to have over seen the ticket issuance process and according to him everyone who presented a UCLA ID to buy a ticket was told to take their ID to the event. This was news to myself as I was not told that when I purchased my ticket the day before. Upon relating this revelation to the man who insisted I must have been told before, he admitted that its possible when he was not present the ticket sellers might have neglected to mention this requirement for admission. It was then that I was approached by a event coordinator who recognized me as a UCLA staff person and asked me if Icould do an urgent foavor for the event. I was to run the UCLA store and buy a UCLA hat for Michael Moore. Being a fairly good sport I agreed and ran off to the UCLA student store to buy a hat, with funds provided, for Mr. Moore. I return to the UCLA tennis Center and delievered the hat got a thank you and proceeded to find a seat. Michael Moore definatly had a supportive audience at UCLA and his candid every day guy style kept the audience engaged for the duration of his speach. A group of UCLA students were protesting the presence of Moore on campus but by and large the heckling of Mr. Moore was kept to a bare minimum, largely thanks to his over reacting security detail.

As I was preparing to leave the speech early, being I only had an hour lunch break in which to attend Michael Moore's speaking engagement, I happened upon a most curious circomstance. A young woman, who looked to be a UCLA student was being dragged up the stairs out of the audience by a black blazer wearing security guard. Grasping the young woman around the wrist and hauling her up the stairs I saw tucked under the security guards free arm a sign. I figured the young lady must have brought a sign and was being escorted out, no biggie. As I was passing by I saw the security man transfer the sign from being tucked in his free arms pit to his free hand so he can begin crummpling the home made sign up. Seeing her sign being damaged by the security guard the young woman lunged towards her sign. The security man twisted his body to keep the sign away from the young lady's grasp and as a result she got a handful of the mans blazer. The security man was livid and yelled out "You assaulted me, you grabbed my jacket!" and he proceeded to bodily slam the young woman to the ground beside me. Now I see this big burly security man toss a girl half his size to the ground and I halted in my tracks and was resolved to be a witness for this event to see where this all was leading to. The security guard dragged/carried the girl to the nearby fences that seperate the patio of the tennis center from the sidewalk. I see he left the sign on the ground near where he slammed the girl down, I stooped and retrieved the sign and followed the struggling pair to the edge of the patio. The security guard then shoves the protestor down and tells her shes under arrest for assaulting him. At this point I speak up and tell the man I was a witness to the whole assault. He looks at me and sees I have the sign and a look of displeasure comes over his features, at which point I continued, to say that from my vantage point he was the one committing the assault as the girl clearly was reaching for her sign which he was destroying. Michael Moorse security guard then tells me I am going to get kicked out too and arrested. At this point more Moore security arrived and a latino gentleman in a grey blazer ripped the sign from my hands and tells me I am going to be arrested too. I told him to go ahead I just wanted to know the charge. Unable to come up with anything he yells at me that I am being detained and am going to be kicked out for my outspokenness. during this encounter the man in the black blazer throws the sign in the trash and lets the young girl return to her seat, satisfied this has come to a somewhat more civil conclusion I turned away only to have the grey blazered security guard tell me not to walk away from him I was being detained and he would tackle me if I kept walking away from him. This got me to stop turn around and tell him I was off to find his supervisor and file a complaint. He stopped hounding me at that point.

I was free the young lady didn't get falsly charged with assault but Michael Moore's bully squad is still out there, protestors beware....