CHICAGO– Police began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment at DePaul University in Chicago early Thursday, hours after the school’s president ordered students to leave the area or face arrest.
Officers and workers in yellow vests cleared away tents and camping equipment at the student camp, leaving yellow squares of dead or dying grass where the tents had been. Front loaders were used to remove the camping gear.
Across the street from where the encampment spread across a grassy expanse of DePaul’s campus known as “The Quad,” several dozen protesters lined a sidewalk in front of a gas station and clapped hands in unison as an apparent protest leader paced. back and forth in front of them, speaking into a megaphone.
All protesters in the encampment “voluntarily” left the area when police arrived early Thursday, Chicago Police Department Chief of Patrol Jon Hein said.
“There were no confrontations and there was no resistance,” he said at a news conference. “As we got closer, all subjects voluntarily left the area.”
However, Hein said two people, a man and a woman in their 20s, were arrested outside the encampment “for obstructing traffic.”
The decision to evacuate the campus comes less than a week after the school’s president said public safety was at risk.
The university said Saturday it had reached a “standoff” with the school’s protesters, leaving the future of their encampment on the Chicago campus unclear. Most of DePaul’s commencement ceremonies will take place the weekend of June 15 and 16.
In a statement, DePaul President Robert Manuel and Provost Salma Ghanem said they believe students intended to protest peacefully, but “the responses to the encampment have inadvertently created public safety issues that endanger our community.”
Efforts to resolve differences with DePaul Divestment Coalition over the past 17 days were unsuccessful, Manuel said in a statement to students, faculty and staff Thursday morning.
“Our Office of Public Safety and the Chicago Police Department are now dismantling the camp,” he said. “Every person currently in the encampment will be given the opportunity to leave peacefully and without arrest.”
He said that since the camp began, “the situation has steadily escalated with physical altercations and credible threats of violence from people not affiliated with our community.”
Students on many college campuses set up similar encampments this spring, calling on their schools to cut ties with Israel and companies that support it, to protest Israel’s actions in the war with Hamas. The protests began as schools were wrapping up their spring semesters and now holding graduation ceremonies.
Tensions at DePaul flared last weekend when counterprotesters showed up to the campus in the city’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, prompting Chicago police to intervene.
The student-led DePaul Divestment Coalition, which is calling on the university to divest from Israel, set up the camp on April 30. The group alleged that university officials walked away from the talks and tried to force students to sign an agreement, according to a student statement. late Saturday.
“I do not want my tuition to be invested in the suffering of my family,” Henna Ayesh, a Palestinian student at DePaul and member of the Coalition, said in the statement.
DePaul is located on the north side of the city. Last week, police removed a similar encampment at the University of Chicago on the city’s South Side.
The Associated Press has recorded at least 77 incidents of arrests at campus protests across the US since April 18. About 2,900 people have been arrested on the campuses of 58 colleges and universities. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.
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Associated Press reporter Christopher L. Keller contributed from Albuquerque, New Mexico