Tom Luljak, spokesman for UWM, told me the following about today's protest:
Sixteen people in custody, 15 will be charged, one student was arrested but it was determined that he wasn’t part of the protest and ultimately was released. They’ll be charged with offenses ranging from disorderly conduct to resisting arrest, obstructing an officer, and possessing illegal substances.
Luljak said:
“We had a peaceful protest over at the union and it was peaceful for a period of time at Chapman Hall. The problems began when some members of the group became violent and began assaulting our police officers. At one point four of our officers were forced against a door and pushed down to or toward the ground as a result of the refusal by some of the individuals to obey the command not to enter the building.”
Those were campus police.
And the pepper spray?
“At one point the officers were forced against the building and were in their mind in serious danger of being injured. some pepper spray was administered over the heads of the crowd. It wasn’t spray directly into anyone’s face. It was sprayed above the crowd in an attempt to get the group to back off so the officers could resume their stance and regain control of the entranceway.”
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Luljak said the chancellor was “away on business today.”
He continued: “We did, however allow a representative of the group to enter the building and deliver the petitions that they had collected. The police chief made the determination early on that it would not be safe to have that size of a crowd in the building. it was his decision to not allow access to this building. Clearly they were allowed to protest peacefully at the union, on Spaights Plaza, and for an extended period of time outside of Chapman Hall. But we have a lot of offices here. We have a lot of people who work in the building and have to move about the building… As it turned out, quite honestly, I think that the fact that a number of the protesters chose to become violent affirms our decision to keep them out of the building.”
