Police and pro-Palestine protesters clashed Monday night after officers tried to clear a makeshift encampment on the lawn outside the James Branch Cabell Library on VCU’s Monroe Park campus, pitching tents in what they called a “liberation zone" and demanding an immediate end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
The chaotic scene, which began at around 8:30 p.m., saw protesters build a barricade with shipping pallets and hurl water bottles and other objects at the police. Officers, some in riot gear, charged the line of demonstrators and deployed chemical agents in an effort to disperse the crowd. Police made numerous arrests and began disassembling the tents, blankets and tarps at the scene.
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VCU said in a statement Monday night that the gathering “violated several university policies,” but did not specify which university rules had been broken.
"VCU respectfully and repeatedly provided opportunities for those individuals involved, many of whom were not students, to collect their belongings and leave," the statement read. "Those who did not leave were subject to arrest for trespassing."
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VCU did not say how it determined that some of the protesters were not students of the school.
“While supporting an environment that fosters protected speech and expressive activity, VCU must maintain an atmosphere free of disruption to the university’s mission," the statement continued.
The first signs that a showdown was imminent came at 7:30 p.m., when VCU sent an alert to the campus community that said police were on the scene of a “public assembly” at the library, located at 901 Park Ave. The alert advised drivers and pedestrians to “avoid the area.” At 8:47 p.m., VCU issued another alert to the campus community that said "Violent Protest Monroe Park. Go inside."
Unmarked vehicles and buses full of police in riot gear were seen amassing outside the library. Police then declared an unlawful assembly and ordered the protesters to leave the scene.
As police moved in, emergency tornado sirens were activated in the vicinity. The library posted signs saying the facility was closed, but allowed some people inside as the incident unfolded.
Protests held at campuses across U.S.
Earlier Monday, VCU student and protest organizer Sereen Haddad, 19, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the group of demonstrators was taking cues from protests on college campuses across the country.
Hundreds of arrests have been made on campuses nationwide in recent days as police have responded to pro-Palestine rallies and marches at Columbia University, Virginia Tech and elsewhere. The protests have centered on demands for schools to separate from companies advancing Israel’s military efforts in Gaza.
“This is a zone for the community to come together for one common cause, which is the liberation of Palestinian people and Palestinians’ right for self-determination,” Haddad said of the latest such gathering at VCU.
On Sunday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, speaking with CNN’s “State of the Union” from Ramstein Air Base in Germany, had said Virginia would protect peaceful gatherings on campus, but will not tolerate instances of intimidation and hate speech.
Youngkin, speaking hours before police made arrests at Virginia Tech over the weekend, said: “First we have to begin with the fact that freedom of expression and peacefully demonstrating is at the heart of our First Amendment, and we must protect it.
.@GovernorVA on campus protests: ‘We will protect the ability to peacefully express yourself, but we're not going to have the kinds of hate speech and intimidation that we're seeing across the country in Virginia.’ pic.twitter.com/7bbHh0PzWk
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) April 28, 2024
“But that does not go to, in fact, intimidating Jewish students and preventing them from attending class and using annihilation speech to express deeply antisemitic views.”
Youngkin, who is on a trade mission to Europe, said he has been working with Attorney General Jason Miyares, university presidents and law enforcement at the state, local and campus levels “to make sure that, if there are protests, they are peaceful.”
“We’re not going to have encampments and tents put up,” he added.
But by Monday evening, an encampment had sprung up in the heart of VCU's Monroe Park campus.
Speaking in the middle of the park adorned with Palestinian flags and posters, Haddad laid out the group’s demands: disclosure of any university investments in Israel or in companies that support Israel, divestment from those companies, protection of pro-Palestine speech on campus and a university declaration calling for a ceasefire and the “immediate end to the occupation, colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and ... U.S. complicity in (the) ongoing genocide.”
Haddad also said the release of "hostages on both sides ... needs to happen."
Final exams begin this week and VCU must provide students the opportunity to safely and successfully complete the semester. The gathering violated several university policies. pic.twitter.com/Kj13WtI4TM
— VCU (@VCU) April 30, 2024
Haddad said the group would remain on the lawn as long as needed — until their demands are met. By Monday afternoon, the protesters were chanting and dancing, working on homework, and screen printing posters and T-shirts.
Wagons of tents were present and protesters brought food, water and tarps Monday morning. Haddad initially would not confirm that the group planned to set up an encampment as protesters have done on college campuses across the U.S., but said the group had been “inspired” by such events nationwide.
“People have started to take that step because ... the steps we have taken so far ... are not working,” she said. “With that in mind, people decide to peacefully escalate.”
By around 5:30 p.m., dozens of tents were erected.
Haddad, who is Palestinian, said she has lost over 100 family members in Israel’s operations in Gaza since Oct. 7. She said members of her father’s family living in Gaza had reached out to express their appreciation for her activism.
The situation has not improved there, she said, adding that, if it appears that Palestinian suffering has lessened, it is only because people have stopped paying attention and journalists covering the conflict have been killed.
“Unfortunately, my family is still going through a genocide,” she said.
Haddad told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that her father had been invited to sit down with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but had considered the invitation merely a conciliatory measure and had declined.
Haddad said her father instead wrote a letter to Blinken in which he asked “how (Blinken) would feel if he had to look face-to-face with someone who was directly responsible for the murder of over 100 of (his) family members.”
Aviva Albert, a VCU freshman studying philosophy, was among the protesters and told The Times-Dispatch that she has been “kind of active” in pro-Palestine circles, but does not feel she has been doing enough for the cause.
Albert, who is Jewish, said her family “is very, very Zionist.”
“I’m trying to combat that,” she said, “(and) come out from the belly of the beast.”
Youngkin's spokesman said Monday night that the governor was being briefed multiple times a day by Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Terrance C. Cole.
Cole is also in touch multiple times a day with campus police chiefs.
Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera is also talking to college presidents and boards of visitors to get a sense of the situation on campuses.
Youngkin spokesman: Police response decided at college level
Rob Damschen, director of communications for Youngkin, said police response to protests is decided at the college level, based on college policy — for example, on encampments — and on determinations by the college president and board of visitors about how much conversation there should be with demonstrators about violations before ordering police to act.
Each campus has its own mutual aid agreement with state and local law enforcement.
Those agreements determine who, besides campus police, participates in any police action. Invoking the agreement is up to the campus police chief.
College officials around the U.S. are asking student protesters to clear out tent encampments. Police arrested demonstrators at the University of Texas, and Columbia University said it was beginning to suspend students who defied an ultimatum to disband the encampment there.
Early protests at Columbia sparked pro-Palestinian protest encampments at schools across the U.S.
On Sunday night and early Monday, police cleared the lawn of the Virginia Tech Graduate Life Center of a three-day protest against Israel's campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
Police approached protesters in the so-called Gaza Liberation Encampment at 10:15 p.m. and told them they would be subject to arrest if they did not disperse within five minutes.
“You don’t have to do this,” protesters are shouting. “You’re on the wrong side of history.” pic.twitter.com/ppYSrGFgDC
— Samuel B. Parker (@SamuelParkerRTD) April 30, 2024
The university had said since Friday that the encampment "was not a registered event consistent with university policy."
As of late Monday, police reported more than 80 people had been arrested as the protests had grown to more than 300 people.
Nine University of Mary Washington students were also arrested over the weekend after protests on the Fredericksburg campus, said Amirah Ahmed, president of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine group.
UMW President Troy D. Paino said in a statement that the university supports the rights of students and others to demonstrate and protest, providing such activities do not “disrupt normal campus operations, obstruct free access to university buildings or unreasonably infringe upon the rights of others.”
Five Democratic lawmakers, elected to the state legislature in 2023, released a statement Monday night criticizing what they called “campus crackdowns on student protests urging peace.”
The lawmakers who signed the statement said they “condemn all forms of antisemitism, all forms of hatred and bigotry, and any act of violence against private citizens affected by this international conflict.” They added that they also share concerns about “law enforcement crackdowns on Protected First Amendment rights at college and university campuses.”
The statement was signed by Dels. Rozia Henson Jr., D-Prince William; Joshua Cole, D-Stafford; Adele McClure, D-Arlington; and Nadarius Clark, D-Suffolk; and Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim, D-Fairfax.
Keith Epps of the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star and Payton Williams of the Roanoke Times contributed to this report.
Samuel B. Parker (804) 649-6462