Police break up pro-Palestinian camp at DePaul University in Chicago

CHICAGO (AP) — Police began dismantling a pro-Palestinian camp at DePaul University in Chicago early Thursday, hours after the school’s president told students to leave the area or face arrests.

Officers and workers in yellow vests cleared out tents and camping equipment at the student camp, leaving yellow squares of dead or dying grass where the tents had stood. Front loaders were used to transport the camping equipment.

Across the street from where the encampment was located on a grassy area of ​​DePaul’s campus known as “The Quad,” a few dozen protesters stood on the sidewalk in front of a gas station, clapping their hands in unison while an apparent protest leader stood on and ab walked back and forth in front of them and spoke into a megaphone.

The move to clear 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 an “impasse” with the school’s protesters, leaving the future of its encampment on the Chicago campus unclear. Most of DePaul’s commencement ceremonies take place the weekend of June 15-16.

In a statement at the time, DePaul President Robert Manuel and Provost Salma Ghanem said they believed the students wanted to protest peacefully, but “the response to the encampment has inadvertently led to public safety issues that endanger our community.”

Efforts to resolve differences with the DePaul Divestment Coalition over the past 17 days have been unsuccessful, Manuel said in a statement sent to students, faculty and staff Thursday morning.

“Our public safety department and the Chicago Police Department are in the process of dismantling the encampment,” he said. “Every person currently in the camp will be given the opportunity to leave the camp 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 associated with our community.”

Students on many college campuses set up similar camps 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 wrapped up their spring semesters and are now holding graduation ceremonies.

Tensions at DePaul rose last weekend when counter-protesters showed up on 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 an encampment on April 30. The group claimed university officials withdrew from talks and tried to force students to sign an agreement, a student statement said later Saturday.

“I don’t want my tuition money to be invested in my family’s suffering,” Henna Ayesh, a Palestinian student at DePaul and member of the coalition, said in the statement.

DePaul is on the north side of the city. Last week, police cleared a similar encampment at the University of Chicago on the city’s south side.

The Associated Press has recorded at least 77 incidents involving arrests at campus protests across the U.S. since April 18. About 2,900 people were arrested on campuses at 58 colleges and universities. The numbers are based on AP reports and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.

___

Associated Press reporter Christopher L. Keller wrote from Albuquerque, New Mexico