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Close to 6 a.m. on Tuesday, officers from the University of Michigan’s Division of Public Safety and Security (DPSS) cleared a student encampment erected on the university diag last month in solidarity with Palestinians enduring Israeli military action.
In a statement released by university President Santa J. Ono, the safety of “students, faculty, employees, university visitors, and protesters” is described as “a paramount concern.”
Regent Sarah Hubbard echoes President Ono’s safety concerns.
“It really became an issue of safety for those on the campus and in the encampment,” Regent Hubbard says.
Officers dressed in riot gear used batons and pepper spray to drive protesters back from the encampment before tossing tents, supplies, and students’ belongings into trash containers.
Cora, a member of the UM chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace who was present at the encampment Tuesday morning and asked that her last name not be used, estimates that about 50 other protesters were present when DPSS officers arrived.
According to Cora, DPSS officers issued a 10-minute warning before beginning their raid of the encampment but failed to wait the full 10 minutes before instituting physical force.
At that point, Cora says, protesters were “pushed back … continuously pepper sprayed, pushed to the ground, beaten, [and] shoved” by DPSS officers.
“I wasn’t personally hit but I did see people pushed to the ground, shoved with batons, pushed onto other people, and generally met with excessive force [by DPSS officers],” Cora says.
She says, “They were spraying people who had already been hit and were on the floor.”
“Almost everyone was pepper sprayed,” Cora continues, herself included.
According to Regent Hubbard, “The police asked them to leave … If they can’t move along, then there are consequences for that.”
Cora says that as one contingent of officers continued to push back against the protesters, another contingent stayed to sweep the encampment.
“As we were being [pepper sprayed] and being pushed to the ground, we were also watching them rip up our art, trash our tents, and throw them all into a couple of U-hauls that they had driven onto the diag,” Cora says.
Asked if she believed the use of pepper spray was an appropriate response to protesters, Regent Hubbard says, “I think it’s important for law enforcement to use whatever tactics meet their needs at the time. I fully support our law enforcement and I think they showed great restraint this morning.”
According to Cora, DPSS officers used so much pepper spray that “the entire air was just filled with it,” creating a “smog.”
Even those who hadn’t been directly sprayed were “definitely still having a hard time breathing,” Cora says.
Cora knew of at least two protesters who visited the Emergency Room as a result of their injuries and said they were eventually discharged.
Deputy Chief of Police for DPSS Melissa Overton said in a prepared statement, “The encampment posed safety risks, both to participants and the community at large, and its presence was in violation of policies and regulations. Its removal was important to help maintain the safety and security of the U-M campus community.”
Deputy Overton confirmed that four protesters were arrested and then turned over to the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office; they have since been released.
According to Cora, those four protesters “were not provided any relief after being pepper sprayed,” and were held in a cell for approximately five hours “with that burning on their face.”
Deputy Overton declined to comment on this claim; the Sheriff’s office has not responded to a request for comment.
According to President Ono’s statement, the order to clear the encampment was made after a university fire marshal “determined that were a fire to occur, a catastrophic loss of life was likely.”
Regent Hubbard also expressed concerns regarding fire safety and claimed that protesters had “brought in chicken wire to surround the encampment, and … a lot of plywood,” which posed a fire hazard.
Spokespeople for the Tahrir Coalition, the coalition of student groups responsible for the encampment, say that to their knowledge the fire marshal “never came” to the encampment.
“We did have multiple conversations around fire safety with university staff [and administrators],” those spokespeople claim, during which university staff did not express any concerns about fire safety.
Regent Hubbard says, “we had members of the university leadership ask the protesters to leave and take down the encampment … numerous times over the last couple of weeks.”
According to Regent Hubbard, before the encampment was cleared, protesters had been repeatedly told, “We have concerns about your safety. We have the fire marshal. We have this. We have that.”
On May 15, members of the Tahrir Coalition staged demonstrations at several private residences belonging to university regents, including Regent Hubbard.
According to Regent Hubbard, protesters showed up “just before 6 a.m., taped a three-page memo to my front door, and then proceeded to erect three tents on my lawn … trespassing across my property by leaving behind fake body bags, toys, and some other paraphernalia.”
“Shortly thereafter, they started chanting and marching with a bullhorn and a drum, and disrupted my very quiet neighborhood,” Regent Hubbard says. “Some of my neighbors have young children that were very fearful about what was going on.”
After officers from the Ann Arbor Police Department appeared on the scene, “the protesters left and left behind their property in my yard,” says Regent Hubbard.
Regent Hubbard adds, “The Board of Regents has been very clear in saying that we will not be changing our investment policy in relation to this request from the coalition.”
When asked if she had personally met with any members of the Tahrir Coalition to discuss the demand for divestment, Regent Hubbard said, “I’ve met with a variety of students on a lot of different issues over my time on the Board of Regents. I don’t know that I’ve met specifically with them about this.”
When pressed, Regent Hubbard says, “I meet with students on a very regular basis about a wide variety of things. So some students have brought this up to me. Have I met with them specifically as a coalition effort? No, I have not. But I have met with them when they have come to Board of Regents’ meetings and provided a public comment.”
Earlier in the conversation, Regent Hubbard denied that students associated with the Tahrir Coalition had availed themselves of the opportunity to provide public comment regarding university divestment.
“We expressly invited them to attend our Board meeting and provide public comment last week. There are a few people that did provide public comment about the same theme of the protest, but nobody officially on behalf of the coalition signed up to provide public comment,” Regent Hubbard says.
Asked whether a meeting between regents, protesters, and President Ono might have helped to defuse a tense situation that resulted in the use of physical force by campus police, Regent Hubbard responds, “They continue to ask for the same thing. So I think until we can move this discussion to the next step, I’m not sure how fruitful that kind of an engagement would be.”
Regent Hubbard adds that she “can’t really define” what that next step might be.
“It’s up to them. They’re the ones requesting things of us,” Regent Hubbard says of protesters.
According to Cora, members of the Tahrir Coalition are “going to have to do a lot more thinking about what comes next on a broader scale.”
Cora describes the DPSS’s raid of the encampment as “really scary and horrible.”
Still, “It was really powerful and beautiful to see the way that people acted to support one another and hold the line for as long as we did,” Cora adds. “Even though we were all brutalized in really, really gross ways, we were successful in coming together, defending the camp, and using the power that we had to send a strong message about the need for the university to divest.”
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Natalia Holtzman
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