Northwestern students 'turned to violence with BRICKS' in anti-cop riot
More than 150 Northwestern University students gathered in protest to call to abolish the police.
This comes as part of an ongoing protest from students demanding police be removed from campus.
With Chicago crime at a record high, a Saturday protest turned violent after students from Northwestern University reportedly engaged in rioting when confronted by police, resulting in at least some property damage.
According to WGN, the demonstration involved more than 150 Northwestern students including those from a group called “NU Community Not Cops” which gathered to call for abolishing police, part of an ongoing protest against the Evanston Police Department and Northern Illinois Police Force.
Northwestern University Graduate Workers, a group that describes itself as “an antiracist, feminist labor union fighting for better working and living conditions for all graduate workers,” issued a statement in response to the incident, claiming that two members were pepper-sprayed.
[RELATED: As crime soars, UChicago students call to disband campus police]
According to Police Chief Demetrius Cook, what began with the potential of being a peaceful assembly turned into violence and brick-throwing.
rebecca crown (where upper admins offices are housed) thanks reddit pic.twitter.com/pZuRJQKmqb
— #nucommunitynotcops (@copsoutofNU) November 2, 2020
“We allowed them to do peaceful assembly and we would have let it ride until they turned to violence with bricks,” Cook said, according to WGN. At least one Northwestern student was arrested.
[RELATED: Coalition of students, faculty call to ban cops from all UC campuses]
While police said the protesters turned violent, the Northwestern University Graduate Workers group blamed police for starting the violence, saying “last night proved once again that it is heavily armed, militarized police who create and escalate violence.”
According to an anonymous protester interviewed by the Daily Northwestern, the protests were a response to not receiving a proper response from the school: “Respectable protest is respectable so people can ignore it. The purpose of protest is to disrupt the normalcy of life. We’re really here just to show them what sense of urgency we have.”
The NUGW group demanded Northwestern President Morton Schapiro to resign for helping “unleash this terror to his own students.”
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