This past Saturday, pro-divestment protestors, led by the group “Resist WashU” attempted to set up an encampment on WashU’s Danforth Campus. Ahead of the protest, the demonstrators had released a list of demands on their Instagram page, which included a demand to divest from Boeing and “fossil-fuel companies,” a demand to boycott Israel (possibly in reference to the BDS movement), a demand to abolish the WashU Police Department (WUPD), and a demand to return all of WashU’s land to “indigenous communities.” As WashU did not accept this ultimatum, the demonstrators resolved to build a “Palestine Solidarity Encampment,” after marching from Forest Park at 3:00 pm.
According to the Instagram page of “Resist WashU,” their initial plan was to build an encampment outside of the Olin Library. When the demonstrators arrived there, they declared their presence both in person by chanting, trying to build an encampment, and placing a keffiyeh on the statue of George Washington, and online, where they announced that they were building an encampment next to the “genocider statue” of Washington. As recollected methodically in Chancellor Martin’s letter on the protest, the demonstrators, the overwhelming majority of whom were not WashU students, began trying to break into WashU’s locked buildings, aggressively waved flagpoles and sticks, and intimidated the students studying for finals in the Olin Library. Due to security concerns, WUPD ordered the evacuation of students from the Olin library at 4:35, at which point the protestors decided to move their encampment to Tisch Field at the easternmost part of campus.
Beginning at 5:13, WUPD ordered the protestors to disperse or face arrest within ten minutes, but the time elapsed without anything being carried out, likely due to the large number of demonstrators, who were (it must be noted) illegally trespassing on private property despite being told to disperse. During this period at Tisch Field, the Green Party Presidential Candidate, Jill Stein, joined and spoke to the demonstrators, and St. Louis Representative Cori Bush tweeted in favor of the demonstration. During this period of time, a protestor was spotted carrying a Taliban flag and wearing a Hamas bandana, while earlier, a Communist Hammer and Sickle flag had been spotted at the protest. As time passed, further law enforcement arrived from the University City, Richmond Heights, and St. Louis Metropolitan Police departments, along with transport vans, though no arrests were yet made.
Beginning at 7:27 pm, the police began making arrests of the trespassing demonstrators, with Jill Stein being one of the first to be arrested. After the first round of arrests, which ended at roughly 7:35, the demonstrators began chanting obscenities at the police, as well as falsely accusing the police of being in “riot gear” and of being “fascists.” As shown by all of the photographs taken by Student Life, there were no policemen in “riot gear,” and instead they were wearing their standard uniforms, and it is likewise impossible that any of the policemen were members of an Italian political party that has been defunct for 80 years. After this first wave of arrests, there were three more, with the final wave being around 8:30 pm, around which time the University locked down the campus so that only those possessing a Student-ID could enter buildings. During the course of these four waves of arrests, the demonstrators assaulted police officers and violently resisted arrest, which led to the injury of three police officers, as confirmed in Chancellor Martin’s letter.
As confirmed by WashU, in total 83 protestors were arrested, of whom only 23 were WashU students, with another four being WashU employees. Chancellor Martin has announced that those arrested have been charged with trespassing, and, where appropriate, assault and resisting arrest. After the arrests were made and those arrested were processed at the Clayton Justice Center, the remaining demonstrators moved their protest to Clayton. Since the end of the demonstration, Chancellor Martin has stated that further attempts to disrupt the education of WashU students or to build encampments on university property will not be tolerated.