Pro-Palestinian protesters and Chicago police officers face each other Saturday as students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago set up an encampment outside the museum to protest the Israel-Hamas war.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability has opened a preliminary investigation into excessive force complaints against Chicago police officers at a pro-Palestine protest near the Art Institute of Chicago on Saturday, officials confirmed.
COPA opened a preliminary investigation to determine whether it or the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs will take over the inquiry into officer conduct.
The Chicago Police Department said COPA had its “full cooperation” for the investigation but didn’t comment further.
A Sun-Times reporter captured video Saturday of police and protesters pushing and shoving as police attempt to move protesters from West Monroe Street back onto the sidewalk of South Michigan Avenue.
The video, posted to X, formally known as Twitter, shows one officer pushing a protester in the head with his open hand and then doing the same to another protester.
Use of force guidelines for CPD require members to only use force that’s “objectively reasonable, necessary, and proportional in order to ensure the safety of a member or third person, stop an attack, make an arrest, control a subject, or prevent escape.”
This occurred a few hours before police cleared the encampment, arresting 68 people related to trespassing charges at the request of the museum.
The People’s Art Institute, one of the groups that put together the encampment, said at least five protesters, including two who were arrested, were taken to hospitals after police swept the encampment.
They accused law enforcement of yanking people’s hair, strangling and hitting people with batons and metal fences at the protest outside the gate; in addition to hitting, elbowing and slamming protesters to the ground, in addition to stepping on them during the arrests.
“Unnecessary violence and aggression were the norm,” the group said in a statement Monday. “Many people who were arrested were injured, and two arrested students needed to be taken to the ER.”
In a statement, the police department said officers spent more than two hours negotiating with demonstrators to clear the area without arrests.
“During multiple rounds of negotiations, SAIC student protesters were promised amnesty from academic sanction and trespassing charges if they agreed to relocate. The School also agreed to meet with a student group to discuss their demands,” the museum spokesperson said.
But organizers say SAIC Provost and Senior Vice-President of Academic Affairs Martin Berger initially gave them until 6 a.m. Sunday to consider this offer for relocation.
Student liaisons from the People’s Art Institute say they asked for the deadline to be moved to 10 a.m. and Berger informed them that “he would see what he could do.”
At 3:30 p.m., members of the People’s Art Institute say they met to discuss the proposal. But 30 minutes later, organizers said Berger rejected the 10:00 a.m. deadline, rescinded the prior offer of 6:00 a.m., and announced the SWAT team would be entering the garden within 7 minutes.
On Friday, Mayor Brandon Johnson and CPD Supt. Larry Snelling said they didn’t want to unnecessarily escalate any protests by having police interfere and deferred decisions to the owners of the property where protests take place.
“Individuals on [the Art Institute’s] private property, they wanted them removed,” Johnson said at an unrelated news conference Monday. “When AIC made that request, obviously the police department reacted. Look, my ultimate desire and goal is to ensure that fundamental rights are protected and we’re working to keep people safe, and that was accomplished.”
It also comes as the city prepares to see a large number of protesters ahead of the Democratic National Convention, including new policies such as one regarding mass arrests the department is calling “coordinated multiple arrests” — prompting some civil liberties groups to say the city isn’t prepared for August.
Last month City Council approved a $750,000 settlement for a man whose leg was broken and ACL torn when he was allegedly clubbed by police during the demonstrations after the 2020 murder of George Floyd. In March, the city approved $52.75 million in settlements tied to police abuse and wrongdoing, including a $45 million settlement for a then-15-year-old boy who suffered a traumatic brain injury after an unauthorized police chase.
Contributing: Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere
Around daybreak Tuesday, campus officers surrounded the university’s main quadrangle and kept students from entering, according to reports from the scene.
By Mary Norkol
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Según los informes, en el campus de Lincoln Park de DePaul los contra manifestantes intentaron enfrentarse a los manifestantes, pero los pro palestinos utilizaron tácticas de desescalada para mantener la paz. En todo el país se ha detenido a más de 2,500 manifestantes desde el 18 de abril.
The University of Chicago Faculty for Justice in Palestine on Monday reaffirmed support for the “peaceful, welcoming and educational space” students had created and called on school leadership to return to “good-faith” negotiations.
By Sophie Sherry
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An official familiar with Israeli thinking says Israeli officials are examining the cease-fire proposal approved by Hamas. But the official warns that the plan “is not the framework Israel proposed.”
Counterprotesters at DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus reportedly tried to clash with pro-Palestinian protesters. Nationwide, more than 2,500 protesters have been arrested since April 18.
Police said the museum asked them to clear the encampment on Saturday, hours after organizers set up tents in the Art Institute’s North Garden which they said were intended to pressure the school regarding the “occupation of Palestine.”
On a mostly peaceful day, tensions briefly bubbled over when counter-protesters confronted the demonstrators at the university’s Edward Levi Hall. An altercation prompted campus police to respond.
Las protestas contra la guerra han invadido los campus universitarios en las últimas semanas. Los estudiantes apoyan a los palestinos en los ataques de Israel contra Gaza, denuncian lo que llaman censura por parte de sus universidades y piden a las instituciones que dejen de invertir en fabricantes de armas y empresas que apoyan a Israel.
By Nader Issa
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Protesters’ demands have focused on divestment — demanding universities cut ties with Israel and businesses supporting the war in Gaza.
By Ellery Jones
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Classes disrupted, fellow students threatened, clashes with police, and the yo-yo story has to wait.
By Neil Steinberg
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Tensions were higher Tuesday when hundreds of New York police officers raided Columbia University and City College of New York while a group of counterprotesters attacked a student encampment at UCLA.
The backlash comes days after the university made an agreement with encampment organizers to take steps toward divesting from Israel.
By Sophie Sherry
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“I remember coming out of my apartment one day and spotting Chicago cops dragging young protesters out of one section of Lincoln Park and shoving them into trucks, while nearby poet Allen Ginsberg was chanting in a circle of peaceful protesters not far away from the radical Abby Hoffman,” remembers Dan Webb, who later became a U.S. attorney.
By Michael Sneed
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El campus se une a las protestas en todo el país para pedir a las universidades que dejen de invertir en empresas que apoyan a Israel.
By Sophie Sherry
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Anti-war protests have swept college campuses in recent weeks as students support Palestinians in Israel’s attacks on Gaza, decry what they call censorship from their universities and call on institutions to divest from weapons manufacturers and companies supporting Israel.
By Nader Issa
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They are willing to risk the completion of degrees or acquiring police records as allies of suffering civilians in Gaza, a reader from Hyde Park says.
The campus joins protests across the country calling on universities to divest from companies supporting Israel.
By Sophie Sherry
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The two-part, four-hour film on WTTW comes just in time for the 750th anniversary of a key event in Dante’s life.
By Neil Steinberg
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Déjà vu is a heck of a thing. Whether it’s 1970 or 2024, war weighs heavily on campuses — and on athletes.
By Rick Telander
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Hundreds of University of Chicago students set up an encampment in the Main Quadrangle on Monday, joining groups on over 100 university campuses nationwide in support of Palestinians.
“Bad actors are using the cover of free speech in this moment of tension to normalize dangerous ideas that cause real harm to Jewish students and communities,” the museum said. But a member of Chicago’s Jewish Voice for Peace said the protesters are saying what Jewish institutions are “afraid to say.”
As the death toll mounts in the war in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis worsens, protesters at universities all over the U.S. are demanding that schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling the conflict.
Hundreds of protesters from the University of Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago and Roosevelt University rallied in support of people living in Gaza.
Students linked arms and formed a line against police after Northwestern leaders said the tent encampment violated university policy. By 9 p.m. protest leaders were told by university officials that arrests could begin later in the evening.
By Isabel Funk
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The joint statement is the latest attempt at public pressure to advance negotiations over a potential cease-fire with Israel.
The video is the first proof of life of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was captured Oct. 7 in southern Israel. His parents have Chicago ties. Last week, his mother was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people of 2024.
A window of the Andersonville feminist bookstore displaying a Palestine flag and a sign calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war was shattered early Wednesday. Police are investigating.
By Kade Heather
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The Democratic president Wednesday reached the end of a long, painful battle with Republicans to secure urgently needed replenishment of aid for Ukraine.
The continuing bloody war in Gaza — the 33,000 Palestinians killed and the unknown fate of Israeli hostages — casts a pall over Passover celebrations.
By Neil Steinberg
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Chicago Reps. Delia Ramirez, Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia and Jonathan Jackson, all Democrats and the most pro-Palestinian members of the Illinois delegation, voted no on aid to Israel. GOP Rep. Darin LaHood split from his party to support aid to Ukraine.
By Lynn Sweet
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