Protestors Get Wish with Mass Arrests
Amid Strategic Rock Stockpiling Claims
Capitol Inside April 29, 2024
Governor Greg Abbott ordered the state police back to the University of Texas on Monday to shut down an protest encampment that Palestine advocates erected on campus where school officials raised the specter of a violent confrontation in the making with the discovery of rocks stockpiled in tents.
UT spokesman Brian Davis said "several" protestors were arrested while the New York Times reported more than 40 were taken into custody by police. Police arrested 57 protestors last week at the flagship Texas campus with a violent show of force against unarmed protestors including the vast majority who were students who'd walked out of class. Travis County officials tossed the charges the following day based on the failure to show probable cause.
Davis portrayed the protestors today as belligerent and combative when university officials and police tried to take down a half-dozen tents in the south lawn where the turbulent demonstration last week was staged. Davis raised the specter of a violent confrontation in the making before the DPS arrived.
“After protesters ignored repeated directives from both the administration and law enforcement officers to comply with Institutional Rules and remove tents assembled on the University’s South Lawn, then physically engaged with and verbally assaulted Dean of Students staff who attempted to confiscate them," Davis said in an email.
"UT and partner law enforcement agencies dismantled an encampment and arrested several protesters," Davis added. "Baseball size rocks were found strategically placed within the encampment. The majority of protesters are believed to be unaffiliated with the university."
Davis said the school received "extensive online threats" during the weekend from encampment organizers abd reported them state, federal and local law enforcement agencies." But UT officials didn't say if the threats on the Internet involved the stoning of police or school staff in light of their claims on the strategic stashing of large rocks by pro-Palestine protestors.
UT declined to venture on whether the rocks could have been placed in a fashion designed to keep the rain out - a common practice for Boy Scouts on campouts.
The arrests today apparently got under way after students formed a blockade at the administration by locking arms together. The scene was similar to the one that erupted on Wednesday - with officers throwing students and other participants to the ground and pinning them while they were handcuffed as though they might leap into the air at any moment and try to escape.
The dramatic responses and heavy-handed tactics could fuel the fire in ways that increase the chances for demonstrations and acts of defiance that cause disruptions that UT officials have said they were trying to prevent. Mass arrests are clearly the goals of organizers - a fact that was evident on Monday when students and others knew they would be dragged to jail if they participated and did so nonetheless.
The University of Texas has been depicted in national news stories as a hotbed for activism with the second highest number of demonstrator arrests for colleges that have ought to defuse protests with police force that has embolden them instead.
