 |
| Austin police and DPS wrestle protestor to ground at Palestine Solidarity Committee rally April 24 - Capitol Inside photos |
Bedlam Breaks Out at UT with Protest
after Abbott Slams Ivy League for Same
Capitol Inside
April 24, 2024
Bedlam erupted at the University of Texas at Austin on Wednesday when protestors and police clash at a pro-Palestinian demonstration just one day after Governor Greg Abbott claimed that Ivy League schools were obsolete for allowing same behavior.
The raucous event at the Republican governor's alma mater drew dozens of state and local law enforcement officers and more than 200 students to the south lawn of the campus to protest U.S,. involvement on Israel's behalf in the current warring in the Middle East.
Multiple arrests were made when police were trying to force the protestors back down a hill where they were chanting "off our campus" loudly and engaging in some cases in minor altercations with law enforcement officers in what appeared to be little more than pushing and shoving.
An Austin police officer pushed a journalist to the ground while he was shooting pictures of skirmishes between the demonstrators and officers including some who were decked in riot gear. Police arrested a photographer for a local television affiliate. Most of the officers at the protest represented the Texas Department of Public Safety or the Austin Police Department.
Officials in the UT Dean of Students office informed the Palestine Solidarity Committee on Wednesday that a request to stage the "Popular University for Gaza" event today had been denied due because it would disrupt normal activities on the campus.
UT Division of Student Affairs spokesman Brian Davis reiterated the message today as the event unfolded.
“UT Austin does not tolerate disruptions of campus activities or operations like we have seen at other campuses," Davis said. "This is an important time in our semester with students finishing classes and studying for finals and we will act first and foremost to allow those critical functions to proceed without interruption.”
Abbott decried protests at colleges in the northeastern U.S. on Tuesday in a post on X. "Ivy League universities are showing that their time has passed," Abbott said. "They are little more than monuments of our past.
Now they are accomplices of the chaos they helped to sow."
Abbott condemned the demonstration that was cut short but intensified dramatically in news value by the aggressive police tactics and show of force that culminated in more than 20 arrests after minor altercations that law enforcement initiated in most cases with an attempt to disperse the gathering by forcing the protestors down a grassy hill.
"Arrests being made right now & will continue until the crowd disperses," Abbott said in a post on X as the wrangling between police and students was still under way. "These protesters belong in jail.
Antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas. Period.
"Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled," the governor added in the post.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick portrayed the protest as an attempted coup.
"Protesters who intended to takeover the UT campus posted on Instagram: “In the footsteps of our comrades at Columbia SJP, Rutgers-New Brunswick, Yale, and countless others across the nation, we will be establishing THE POPULAR UNIVERSITY FOR GAZA." This is delusional. We have big problems on our college campuses," Patrick said on X late this afternoon.
more to come ...
|
