State Police arrest 23 more protesters at Indiana University on Saturday
The issue, apparently, is tents. What is the problem with tents??
State Police again confronted protesters on the campus of Indiana University on Saturday afternoon, advancing on them and arresting 23 of them when they refused orders to dismantle their tents.
This was a repeat of the extraordinary events that occurred on campus on Thursday when — for likely the first time in the 204-year history of the university — Indiana State Police confronted protesters in a line, pushing against them and tackling and arresting 33 of them, including three professors.
There have now been a total of 56 arrests of protesters in three days — protesters who were not committing any acts of violence, causing any destruction or blocking traffic.
At least one of the professors arrested on Thursday has been barred from campus for a year. On Friday morning, at a faculty rally in front of Bryan Hall, the administration building, he stood across the street, addressing them with a megaphone from city property, to avoid stepping onto campus.
The Indiana University Police Department issued a press release on Saturday afternoon, saying they’d “responded to the encampment” along with the Indiana State Police on Saturday.
“After numerous written and verbal communications that free speech and protest are permissible but the presence of unapproved temporary or permanent structures violates university policy, a group of individuals erected numerous tents and canopies on Friday night with the stated intention to occupy the university space indefinitely.”
This statement is not quite correct.
Protesters brought tents back into Dunn Meadow on Friday morning, walking there from Bryan Hall, where they’d been gathered with faculty supporters.
And on the issue of tents…the release fails to mention that tent encampments in Dunn Meadow have been have been a normal site during anti-war demonstrations over the years, including in the early 1990s, during the First Gulf War and also during the demonstrations against the Apartheid regime in South Africa,… and that after more than 50 years, the policy suddenly changed on Wednesday night, hours before the planned pro-Palestine protest by the IU Divestment Coalition was set to begin.
IU announced late Wednesday and on Thursday morning that “structures” (to include tents) would now require permission and that overnight structures would not be allowed.
State Police, along with members of the IU Police Department, arrived in Dunn Meadow at about 12:20 p.m. on Saturday and gave warnings to remove the tents.
“At approximately 12:35 p.m. individuals who refused to remove their structures from university property were detained and removed,” IUPD’s release says.
Twenty-three individuals were taken to the county jail and charged with offenses ranging from criminal trespass to resisting law enforcement.
Video of today’s arrests:
Law and order is preferable to the alternative. This would also include the right to protest within the decorum of the rules which are pretty clear in most places.
Given the homeless problem in Bloomington, this is a wise policy. It is inevitable that this would have become a homeless camp. We don't need discarded heroin needles all over university property, and homeless men have been arrested for sexually assaulting female students.