Despite clash with police in Madison, encampments continue at UW-Madison, UWM

Police swarmed a University of Wisconsin-Madison encampment Wednesday morning and arrested 34 people, two days after pro-Palestinian protesters took over Library Mall.

Demonstrators did not admit defeat. Within hours of police removing tents, the protesters pitched more than a dozen new ones. They have vowed to stay until their demands are met for UW-Madison to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

In contrast, the UW-Milwaukee encampment was quiet Wednesday.

At UW-Madison, tension had been building for two days. It culminated in a clash with four people booked into jail, eight officers injured and two professors detained. Outrage among protesters intensified at how police handled the intervention while UW-Madison defended the action as necessary to maintain campus safety.

"They came in when people were sleeping in tents on a lawn and then they started assaulting people," first-year graduate student Dahlia Sava told the Journal Sentinel. "They started beating people. They started pushing (and) shoving people. This is, you know, intended to escalate the situation, intended to threaten and intimidate students and community members with violence, and I do not stand for that."

Standoff escalates into violence as UW-Madison police move in

The standoff started Monday morning. Roughly 300 protesters set up the encampment despite a state rule banning camping on campus grounds.

Police took a hands-off approach over the next roughly 48 hours while UW-Madison administrators repeatedly asked protesters to remove the tents. Campus leaders offered to meet with protesters and discuss demands but only after the encampment came down.

Dozens of officers arrived in riot gear shortly before 7 a.m. Wednesday. They issued a series of warnings to remove the tents.

Protesters linked arms around the encampment in an attempt to prevent police from breaking into the encampment. In preparation for arrest, they scribbled bail numbers, the phone number they would use to make their one call, on their arms in marker.

Mayhem broke out as police took down tents, one by one. Offices pulled out their riot batons, shoved protesters to the ground and hit people in the head with their shields. Punches were thrown.

"Things got a little tense this morning, and we hoped that it would have been a little more peaceful than it became," UW-Madison spokesperson Marc Lovicott told reporters. "But we came here to ensure Chapter 18, the tenting policy, was enforced, and that's what happened this morning."

Pro-Palestinian protesters outraged by police force

UW-Madison students uninvolved in the protest and making their way to classes that morning expressed shock and surprise at the scene.

"SHAME ON UW MADISON," the UW-Madison chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine posted on Instagram.

Police placed zip-tie cuffs around UW-Madison Professor Sami Schalk's wrists and pinned UW-Madison Professor Samer Alatout to the ground. Alatout later spoke to reporters with dried blood on his head; he said he received a citation and was released. He said police specifically targeted him as a Palestinian professor supportive of the protests.

"They were screaming 'Him! Him!' but I was locking hands with other people," Alatout told the Journal Sentinel. "And they charged towards me several times, knocked me down at least three times, hit me with different things."

MGR Govindarajan, a UW-Madison senior who represents the campus district on the Madison Common Council, said he was "appalled" by the police crackdown on protesters. He said the intervention was unnecessary.

"The chilling effect from today’s actions will leave a stain on UW’s legacy," Govindarajan said in a statement.

UW-Madison chancellor: Encampment posed safety risk

UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said she authorized police to clear the encampment because it posed an increasing safety risk to the campus community. People unaffiliated with UW-Madison were engaging in confrontational behavior.

One person, for example, acted in a blatantly antisemitic way Monday by making the "Heil Hitler" salute. Jewish people reported it to campus police.

Protesters were allowed to continue demonstrating Wednesday morning by moving away from the tents, and many took that approach, Mnookin said. But a couple dozen were cited after resisting or interfering with the tent removal.

City of Madison Police, the Wisconsin State Patrol and Dane County Sheriff's Office assisted UW-Madison police. Four officers and three deputies were injured during the conflict, Lovicott said. A State Patrol trooper sustained injuries when a protester struck their head with a skateboard.

The majority of the 34 people arrested during the standoff were released without a citation, he said. It wasn't immediately clear how many of those arrested were UW-Madison students, employees or unaffiliated with campus.

One person was booked into Dane County Jail on the charges of attempted disarming of a police officer, attempted escape and two counts of resisting arrest, Lovicott said. Three others were booked on charges of battery to a police officer, with one of the individuals also facing a resisting arrest charge.

Republicans celebrated the police intervention. Some lawmakers had urged UW-Madison to take action much earlier in the week.

"Good move," Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, tweeted. "Thank you @uwchancellor for doing the right thing by enforcing campus policies and standing up to the unruly mob."

The role of campus leadership is not to take sides in international debates, Mnookin said. Protesters are free to resume peaceful protest.

"Like many other college campuses across the country and the world, we expect to continue to face protest activity, and we recognize and respect that protest is part of our community’s precious right to free speech and expression," she wrote in a letter to faculty, staff and students. "But such rights are not unlimited: The boundaries that our laws and code of conduct place on speech are meant to ensure that all have access to our common spaces and that dialogue takes place without intimidation or exclusion."

Contact Kelly Meyerhofer at [email protected] or 414-223-5168. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @KellyMeyerhofer.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UW Police arrest dozens of protesters at University of Wisconsin