Biography
Mitch Cohen was a Stony Brook campus activist jailed after his arrest while challenging exclusion from campus. His case helped prompt the March 1969 library protest.
A March 7, 1979 Statesman profile by Rich Bergovoy reported that Cohen had been arrested twelve times and had spent four months in jail on one occasion. The article did not identify the dates or case for that completed stay, so it cannot establish precise custody endpoints or automatically be assigned to a particular prosecution. It also identified Cohen as the founder of Red Balloon in 1969 and described his continuing work editing its magazine, supporting fired bookstore workers and organizing against the Vietnam War.
Individually reported May Day arrest, duration unresolved
The May 4, 1971 Statesman individually lists Mitchel Cohen among thirty-three people from Stony Brook reported arrested in Washington, D.C., by 6 p.m. Monday, May 3, during the anti-war road-blocking demonstrations. The article describes mass confinement at the RFK stadium field and D.C. jails, but does not identify this person’s precise holding location, release time, charges or final duration. Conflicting and unconfirmed reports about camp feeding and tear gas remain group allegations, not verified individual experiences. This separate reported arrest is not a continuation of the older Stony Brook case; no multi-day served counter or invented discharge is added.
Statesman, Stony Brook, volume14 no.48, May4,1971, original page1.
February 1970 sentencing date refined
The February 23, 1970 Statesman editorial reports that Mitch Cohen and Glenn Kissack spent the preceding weekend in the county jail. The accompanying first-person statement by Mitchel Cohen is explicitly introduced as released following his Suffolk District Court sentencing on Friday. The dated issue therefore identifies the sentencing day as February 20, 1970, rather than February month precision alone. Cohen received concurrent four- and three-month terms; this is not four plus three months actually served. The report verifies weekend physical custody but does not expressly identify the very first admission day or actual release. Those endpoints and the completed total remain unaltered. This is the March 1969 cafeteria-arrest prosecution, not the later separate May 1969 disorders or May Day 1971 arrest.
Statesman composite, February23 and25,1970, original PDF pages1-2 (printed February23 pp4-5).
Statesman, March 7, 1979, PDF page 9 (printed 3A). Retrospective accounts remain attributed; existing case dates and duration counters are preserved.
The campus chronicle and opposing opinion column recall his arrest and exclusion from campus, and the chronicle says he went to court that morning. The newspaper presents competing views of the exclusion and protest. No new statutory charge, prison admission or release is derived from these comments.
