SDS, Police Fight; Helfand Arrested

Two members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Ira D. Helfand '72 and Mary L. Perkins, were arrested on February 1 during a clash with Boston policemen and private security guards at the British Consulate in the Prudential Tower in Boston.

Helfand and Perkins, a sophomore at B.U., have been charged with assault and battery and are scheduled to stand trial at 9 a.m. February 16 in Boston Municipal Court. Currently they are both free on $500 personal recognizance.

The clash occurred after about 75 members of SDS had marched to the Prudential Center February 1 to protest the deaths of the 13 Irish civilians who were killed by British troops in Londonderry on January 30.

Demonstrators, Police Clash

After picketing peacefully for 45 minutes, the demonstrators attempted to storm through the lines of Boston policemen to enter the building. The police, along with private security guards assigned to the Prudential Center, used black-jacks in an effort to keep the demonstrators out of the building.

At about this time, however, hundreds of workers, in the Center, who had finished their jobs for the day, were streaming out the doors, and the protestors managed to reach the downstairs lobby.

Seven protestors, including Helfand and Perkins, immediately took an elevator up to the 47th floor, where the office of Alastair Maitland, the British Consul, is located. The rest of the demonstrators, however, were forced to remain downstairs as security guards, realizing what was happening, shut down all the elevators.

The seven demonstrators demanded to see Maitland. When Maitland refused to come out of his office, a fight ensued between the protestors and about 10 Boston policemen and private security guards.

Helfand claims that he never assaulted an officer. "A cop jumped me from behind and then hit me over the head with a blackjack," Helfand said yesterday. "I never saw him and I'm not really sure what happened. I'm definitely going to plead 'not guilty'," he added.

Perkins, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, is also expected to plea "not guilty."

Helfand was separated from Harvard last June, two days before his planned graduation, for being a member of a group which subjected Sargent Kennedy '28, then secretary to the Corporation, to "intense personal harassment" during an SDS rally.

SDS had called the rally to protest Harvard's inaction following the deaths of two children in Muddy Pond, a Harvard-owned marsh located in Jamaica Plain. The University later agreed to fill in the pond, and the project was completed last summer.

Ireland has been plagued by bombings and riots since the deaths of the 13 Londonderry civilians. Last Sunday about 20,000 pro-Roman Catholic demonstrators, led by Bernadette Devlin, a member of the British Parliament, defied a ban on parades and marched down the streets of Newry to protest the deaths