Authorities and protesters clashed during the latest pro-Palestinian protest at the university on Monday.
Zany: Regardless of how crappy this news is, Im very happy to hear what the district attorney is saying. She dismissed charges for all protesters arrested the first time. This time the protesters are charged with criminal trespass and she’s currently reviewing the police reports. In the meantime, she’s urging university administrators to find a different way of handling this, because the number of arrests each time is unsustainable for their criminal justice system. She even said that the arrests are only going to escalate the situation because these protests are non-violent and arresting people is violating their right to peacefully assemble.
The police should focus on the outsiders who spout antisemitic speech and cause trouble. The majority of the students and faculty involved in the protests are peaceful. I blame the media for labeling them as Pro-Palestinian, Pro-Hamas, or Anti-Israel protests. Why not just call them what they are? These students are protesting a war that has killed 34,000 civilians, over 25,000 women and children, and over 15,000 children. The latest bombing in Rafah killed 10 kids, the youngest was 18 months old along with a pregnant mother whose baby was saved with a posthumous cesarean section, but later died. The mother was only 30 weeks pregnant. Why wouldn’t someone be angry about that kind of senseless murder and loss of life? Where are Pro-life activists as the IDF kills unborn babies in their mother’s womb? Huh? Oh… I see. You only care about saving American babies. Maybe even only White American babies for some of you. These are Anti-war protests. Protests for peace.
Ok, I’m going to end my commentary here because I’m getting angry and I don’t want to say anything that I’ll later regret.
Here is the full article on the 79 protesters arrested during a protest on the University of Austin campus yesterday. This is from the Texas Tribune—Written by mental health reporter Stephen Simpson and freelance reporter Sneha Dey.
Authorities arrested 79 people during the second police crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the University of Texas at Austin since last week, according to the Travis County Sheriff’s Office.
The protesters were arrested Monday during a campus demonstration and booked into the Travis County Jail, a sheriff’s office spokesperson said Tuesday. Seventy-eight of the people arrested are charged with criminal trespassing. One of them has an additional charge of obstructing a highway or passageway, while another person has been charged with interfering with public duties.
None of those arrested had been booked before a judge as of Tuesday morning.
Travis County Attorney Delia Garza, who dropped all criminal charges against 57 protesters who were arrested during another demonstration last week, said Tuesday law enforcement provided “more detailed, more substantive” paperwork when they filed charges related to the most recent arrests. Garza has said she dismissed the previous charges because law enforcement lacked probable cause. Probable cause is the reason law enforcement provides to justify arrests.
Garza said she has received 65 charges against 79 of the protesters arrested Monday. She is still reviewing them and didn’t say whether she’ll pursue them. But she said the rate of arrests from these demonstrations is unsustainable for the local criminal justice system.
“While we understand the safety concerns of the university, continuing to send protesters to jail on criminal trespass charges — one of the lowest level nonviolent crimes our offices is presented with — is putting a tremendous strain on criminal justice resources.” she said. “I am also deeply concerned about how matters will escalate when people believe they are being prevented from exercising the right to participate in non violent protests.”
Garza called on university administrators “to be leaders” and find an alternative way to handle the protests, such as coming up with a compromise with organizers.
“What we’re seeing right now does not seem sustainable. And the fear is to have that escalate and that it’s not just criminal trespass, that it becomes more dangerous than criminal trespass charges.”
The latest arrests came after protesters started an encampment at the university’s South Lawn on Monday morning. University officials said protesters created a barricade using tables secured by metal chains and became “physically and verbally combative” when school staff approached. University staff said encampments are prohibited on campus and requested support from the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Law enforcement warned protesters they would arrest them for criminal trespassing if they didn’t disperse. Officers eventually marched down on the protesters, dragging dozens of them before deploying pepper spray and flash bang explosives to disperse hundreds of people.
On Tuesday morning, a crowd of nearly 100 people waited outside the Travis County Jail waiting for the release of protesters arrested the day before. Various people brought food and water as students sat around preparing for their finals this week. A feeling of frustration and determination permeated the gathering.
“I have finals, and I don’t know if I can go back to campus again because it feels unsafe due to the people who are supposed to protect us,” said Arwyn Heilrayne, a UT-Austin student arrested during another pro-Palestinian protest last week.
Piper Leleux, a UT-Austin sophomore who was also in the crowd outside the jail waiting for her boyfriend to be released, said they hadn’t initially planned on being at Monday’s protest.
Leleux had just gotten off work at Urban Outfitters and was planning to meet her boyfriend for dinner when she got a text about the protest. It was a hot day, so they first met up to bring some water to protesters.
When they arrived, they were greeted by a chaotic scene that ended with her getting hit in the face and her boyfriend in handcuffs.
Leleux said she found herself stuck in a crowd of people when police started to pepper-spray the area. She said she accidentally ran into a cop and was trying to apologize when the officer elbowed her in the face.
“I fell to the ground and hit my head and then I was just angry because I was being polite,” Leleux said.
She then noticed her boyfriend being arrested, and the pain disappeared.
“I just started running towards him not even realizing I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be,” Leleux said. “One of my friends grabbed me and pulled me back or I might have been arrested, too.”
Leleux said she spent the next 24 hours outside the Travis County Jail.
“Once he is released, I will go to the hospital to make sure I don’t have a concussion. It hasn’t been fun, but it’s a lot better than what he is dealing with right now,” Leleux said.
Daniella Alfonso, another UT-Austin student outside the jail, said she went to the protests Monday when she learned one of her friends had been hit by a law enforcement officer on a bicycle. She said when she arrived she saw the cops had started to circle around protesters.
“I noticed one of my friends get pepper-sprayed and the skin on her arm starting turning red and burning,” Alfonso said.
Alfonso said she felt like she was in the middle of a television scene.
“I wasn’t expecting someone we know to get arrested and charged with criminal trespassing. We pay to be there,” Alfonso said.
Monday’s arrests came days after another police crackdown on protesters at UT-Austin on Wednesday. There was no indication of violence before police intervened in that protest. UT-Austin President Jay Hartzell justified the university’s response Wednesday by saying officials had reason to believe that protesters planned to set encampments and disrupt school activities, as it has happened with demonstrations at other universities across the country.
“The University strongly supports the free speech and assembly rights of our community, and we want students and others on campus to know that protests on campus are fully permissible, provided that they do not violate Institutional Rules or threaten the safety of our campus community,” a statement from university officials said Tuesday.
Some people outside the jail on Tuesday said the university’s response so far would not dissuade them from continuing to participate in the protests.
“I am still going to protest because if I stopped they win,” Leleux said. “They are using scare tactics to try and intimidate us, and we can’t let that happen.”
Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article in this post was originally published on the Texas Tribune website and parts of it are republished here, with permission under Creative Commons.
