And by "van-burners," we don't mean the variety that park by Ocean Beach in their VW van toking while watching the sunset. Or maybe we do…

Authorities think a UC Berkeley campus security van torching that happened in the wee hours of the morning might be related to a citation and an arrest made earlier in the evening.

The torched van was discovered at 6 a.m. this morning. The vandalism occurred after two tree-sitters, or tree-sitter sympathizers (the details aren’t too clear on this), were slapped on the wrist by campus security officers.

First, at 6:30 last night, 20-year-old Kristin Connelly was cited for trespassing in the area where the tree-sitters are “residing.” Second, at around 4 a.m., 29-year-old James Fannon was arrested for being drunk in public. Now come on. Aren’t college kids allowed to have a little fun? Even if they’re too old to know better? Is this guy a student, or just unemployed?

Anyway. The tree-sitters and their BFFs were apparently pretty upset about the interference by Johnny Law. To date, around 200 citations have been issued in relation to the tree-sitting, which started back in December of 2006.

What we love most about all the tree-sitting news coverage is learning the “names” of the tree-sitters. With aliases such as Elm and Tree Otter, it is difficult to believe that these peaceful protesters would ever do anything as violent as torching a campus police van. Yeah, right.

Read more about it here.