Hundreds march to USF after tear gas, arrests, but protest remains peaceful
A day after 10 people were arrested during a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of South Florida, organizers returned in greater numbers Wednesday. But it was a stark contrast from the day before.
The protest started off campus about 5:30 p.m. at the corner of North 56th Street and East Fowler Avenue in Temple Terrace. By about 7 p.m., a crowd of 250-300 people were marching in the 85-degree heat toward the USF campus, where protests ended Tuesday evening with police using tear gas to disperse about 100 people who had gathered.
By 8 p.m. Wednesday, the group had reached MLK Plaza — the same place where the previous day’s events unfolded. Dozens of law enforcement officers watched from a distance as the group chanted and made room for people to pray.
About a half-hour later, the group was marching back to their original spot on Fowler Avenue. But there was no tear gas this time. No orders to leave. No arrests.
You can catch up with all that happened Tuesday at USF, and other Florida universities, here.
Here’s what happened Wednesday.
8:34 p.m.
The crowd is now marching out of USF back to their starting point, chanting “disclose, divest, we will not stop we will not rest.”
— Justin Garcia, Times staff
8:28 p.m.
The crowd is about to march back.
“This is public. We have the right and power,” said Lama Alhasan. “We will be coming back here on Friday because this is the people’s plaza.”
— Justin Garcia and Lesley Cosme Torres, Times staff
8:19 p.m.
Protesters shouted, “Free, free Palestine!” one last time, and then the crowd chatted amongst themselves as some protesters left the scene.
Another protester started talking into the megaphone again. They said they weren’t afraid of intimidation from law enforcement and that protesters need to be united and continue the fight.
Then, more chanting. “Disclose, divest, we will not stop we will not rest.”
— Justin Garcia, Times staff
8:08 p.m.
Around 200 protesters returned to the spot where police launched tear gas at protesters the day before.
As the sun set, the crowd chanted, “The more you try to silence us, the louder we will be.”
Protest marshals wearing yellow vests faced away from the crowd, keeping an eye on the dozens of law enforcement officers watching the crowd.
Protesters made room for people to pray and formed a circle around the religious ceremony.
— Justin Garcia, Times staff
8 p.m.
The group has now entered MLK Plaza. It has thinned out a little bit, but most protesters have stayed.
Dozens of police officers are observing from over 100 feet away.
Chants can heard in the plaza: “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.”
— Justin Garcia, Lesley Cosme Torres and Sam Ogozalek, Times staff
7:41 p.m.
As protesters approached the main entrance to USF, police shut down the intersection of Leroy Collins and Fowler so the crowd could cross the street.
The group is passing the USF library near the MLK Plaza, where protests were held Monday and Tuesday.
— Lesley Cosme Torres and Justin Garcia, Times staff
7:36 p.m.
The crowd has grown to about 250-300 people. Marching west on East Fowler Avenue, they chanted, “Free Free, Palestine. Free, free, Gaza.”
As the sun lowered, the protesters approached the main entrance to USF. Organizers are not sharing their plans with the media. They chanted as several protesters walked into the turning lane on Fowler Avenue eastbound.
— Justin Garcia and Lesley Cosme Torres, Times staff
7:10 p.m.
The crowd has grown to at least 200 people. They are approaching the USF campus. Organizers have not said where they are going, but they told protesters to “prepare for a long walk” and drink water.
As they march, protesters are chanting, “Biden, Biden, you’re a liar. We demand a cease-fire.”
— Lesley Cosme Torres and Justin Garcia, Times staff
6:56 p.m.
The crowd is marching west on East Fowler Avenue. Police briefly stopped the protesters to tell them to stay on the sidewalk. State troopers could be seen taking photos and videos of the crowd.
The crowd was chanting: “What do we want?” “Justice.” “When do we want it?” “Now.”
— Sam Ogazlek, Lesley Cosme Torres and Justin Garcia, Times staff
6:52 p.m.
Jake Geffon, another protester who was arrested Tuesday, addressed the crowd.
“God is with us, every moment of our struggle,” he shouted into a microphone. “All of our ancestors are cheering us on. This is a community of love and liberation.”
Geffon said that when he was in jail in a room full of people, others expressed their support for a free Palestine. “Everyone is on our side,” he said.
The crowd is preparing to march. They have not said where they are going.
— Justin Garcia, Times staff
6:40 p.m.
Cameron Pressey was one of the 10 protesters arrested at USF on Tuesday.
“I was there for five minutes, recording. While I was doing nothing but recording, holding people accountable, they (police officers) tackled me to the ground,” he said. “We’re not here just to make a lot of noise, we’re here for the people of Palestine. To stand against genocide.”
— Lesley Cosme Torres, Times staff
6:30 p.m.
The crowd is growing to a couple hundred people.
“The atrocities that are being committed in Gaza right now can only happen with the funding coming from the United States,” Lama Alhasan, with the Tampa Bay Dream Defenders, said to the crowd. “These are our tax dollars that are paid for this.”
Alhasan said everyone has a role and responsibility “to stop this genocide.”
“USF might say it’s complicated and say the students don’t understand. We know these are lies. We know it’s very easy to divest but USF refuses to.”
— Justin Garcia and Lesley Cosme Torres, Times staff
6:08 p.m.
The crowd has grown to about 100 people. It is unclear how many of them are students.
Ali Abdel-Qader, with the Party for Socialism and Liberation Tampa Bay, acknowledged the arrests of protesters at demonstrations and encampments across the country.
“The reason why the administration, the politicians and the police are working together is because they are afraid of being held accountable for their complicity in genocide,” he said.
Abdel-Qader, a Palestinian, said that multiple students suffered injuries from the use of tear gas and aggressive arrests at Tuesday’s demonstration. He said USF’s administration and law enforcement are cracking down aggressively on student movements to “break them up.”
— Justin Garcia and Sam Ogozalek, Times staff
5:55 p.m.
Victoria Hinckley, a senior at USF who spoke on behalf of Students for a Democratic Society, said during a news conference before the demonstration that she would no longer be able to graduate this year after she helped organize a protest this week. She’s been trespassed from the campus, she said.
Hinckley said that the protesters were peaceful Tuesday until riot police launched tear gas at the crowd. She accused the USF administration of lying about the protesters being violent leading up to the arrests.
— Justin Garcia, Times staff
5:40 p.m.
About 30 protesters have gathered at the corner of North 56th Street and East Fowler Avenue in Temple Terrace. Protesters are chanting, “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide. You’re supporting genocide.” They’re also chanting “USF, shame on you, student voices matter, too.”
So far, few police officers are on the scene. A Tampa Bay Times reporter saw a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office squad car, a Temple Terrace police car and a Tampa police car. All were across the street.
Hassan Shibly, founder and lead attorney of Muslim Legal, said his Tampa law firm is ready to bring legal action against colleges or law enforcement for any excessive use of force or First Amendment violations.
“Everything’s on the table,” he said. “We’re exploring all options.”
Organizers of the protest are about to hold a news conference to kick off the demonstrations.
— Justin Garcia and Sam Ogozalek, Times staff
4:30 p.m.
On Tuesday, Florida State University police arrested five protesters on misdemeanor trespassing charges. The arrests were peaceful and occurred minutes after protesters erected tents on the campus.
One of the people arrested was Elijah Ruby, who said he was a senior weeks away from graduation. While he was sitting in a Leon County jail cell, a university police officer came up to him and handed him a piece of paper informing him he was being “indefinitely trespassed” from the school, Ruby said during an off-campus news conference today.
Ruby said he could not attend his final exam for his French class today.
“I can’t attend my own graduation. If I had to take an extra class, I couldn’t go to that class in person,” he told reporters. “Just for setting up a tent.”
A university spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ruby’s arrest report states that interim university police Chief Justin Maloy asked Ruby to take down the tent or be issued a trespassing warning, and he refused. The report cites the university’s policy on “camping,” which states that tents or other temporary structures are prohibited “except when used in connection with activities of academic or administrative units of the University.” The policy defines camping as using a tent “with the intent to stay overnight.”
Ruby said that he had not placed stakes in the ground, had not entered the tent and only erected it “in solidarity with the protesters that were getting brutalized at the University of South Florida and University of Florida.”
He said he’s since sought clarification from the university about the terms of his “indefinite trespassing,” but has not received a response. The university, he said, owns empty lots throughout Tallahassee.
“I want to abide by this order,” Ruby said. “But what they’ve presented me with is a situation where I can just be walking past, step on the wrong section of sidewalk, and legally speaking they can come and arrest me for trespassing.
“They’ve not provided any clear details on what boundaries of the campus are.”
— Lawrence Mower, Times staff
1 p.m.
Howard Simon, the interim executive director of the ACLU of Florida, released this statement on Wednesday:
“The right to protest is a central pillar of the First Amendment – a value that has shaped this country since its founding, and one that we will always defend. The right to peacefully protest is a freedom guaranteed by our Constitution.
“The Supreme Court has forcefully rejected the premise that, ‘because of the acknowledged need for order, First Amendment protections should apply with less force on college campuses than in the community at large.’ Students have the right to advocate for the movements and causes they believe in.
“The First Amendment applies to public universities and colleges, and, thus – while targeted harassment rooted in antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, or other bigotry may be proscribed – university officials must respect free speech and the right to peacefully protest.
“Cracking down on peaceful protestors is likely to escalate – not calm – the tensions on campus, as events of the past week have made abundantly clear. Threatening students with expulsion from their university or deportation from the country does not align with the obligations of public officials to respect First Amendment rights regardless of the point of view that is being expressed.
“University leaders must resist the pressure from politicians seeking to exploit campus tensions to advance their own notoriety or partisan agendas. Universities need to stand up to such intimidation and defend the principles of academic freedom which is essential to their integrity and mission.
“Universities are meant to be havens for robust debate, discussion, and learning — not sites of censorship where administrators and politicians squash political discourse they don’t approve of with threats, arrests, rubber bullets, and tear gas.”
10 a.m.
Three protesters were also arrested at USF on Monday. Simon Rowe, 23, was the first of them taken into custody.
At about 1 p.m., he started to pitch a tent when an officer walked over and stood on top of it. Rowe continued setting up the tent while the deputy waved for backup, according to video that captured the incident.
Another video shows an officer forcing Rowe’s hands behind his back before three deputies escorted him away. A crowd of protesters followed, chanting “Shame on you” at law enforcement.
Rowe, who is charged with trespassing, said the entire incident felt like it only lasted a couple of minutes.
“I didn’t put up any resistance,” said Rowe, who is now a package handler for UPS. “That’s literally like what a police officer said — that I put up little resistance.”
Tents are allowed under certain conditions on campus, but university officials warned students in a written notice Monday that they had not received the required permission in advance.
“I do not believe that the rules are valid. I don’t believe they follow the law of free speech on college campuses,” Rowe said. “It’s a violation of our rights the way they treated us that day: myself and the other protesters.”
He added the university’s rules are enforced unequally.
“Whenever there’s someone right-wing on campus bothering students it’s always ‘free speech, free speech,’” he said. “But whenever there’s someone pro-Palestinian, the same courtesy is not regarded to us.”
Rowe said he wasn’t part of the protest from the start, but joined later. It meant he never saw the notice given earlier that day.
“I was hanging around MLK Plaza, and joined once they (protesters) had reached MLK Plaza,” he said. “So I had never gotten that initial warning of arrest.”
Rowe was released from Orient Road Jail about 9 p.m. Monday to find a group of protesters gathered outside the building. He chatted with them before heading home.
Rowe, who graduated from USF in 2021, said he is barred from the university campus for a year, per conditions of the trespassing charge. While it limits his involvement in ongoing protests, he plans to stick near the jail this week to help bail out others, including fellow Tampa members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
Rowe said he was disappointed in his alma mater and other state university leaders.
”The rhetoric about that anti-Palestinian racism we’re seeing from boards of trustees and calling people — an entire group of people — terrorists is frankly disgusting,” he said.
— Jack Prator, Times staff
9 a.m.
The Bay Area Dream Defenders and Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society announced this morning that another protest is planned for 5:30 p.m., though it will be off-campus at the corner of 56th and Fowler Avenue.
— Divya Kumar, Times Staff
10:45 p.m. Tuesday
USF President Rhea Law and Will Weatherford, the chairperson of the USF board of trustees, issued a letter late Tuesday night.
Here is its full text:
Dear USF community,
The safety and well-being of our students, faculty, staff, and all members of the university community is our highest priority.
We value free speech and protecting the constitutional right for individuals and groups on campus to gather and express themselves. This includes protests and demonstrations that we have experienced many times on our campuses without incident. Free expression is an expected and important part of the public discourse of a university, and we’re proud to say it is among the core values that define our institution. However, these activities have to remain peaceful and cannot cross a line that violates the law or USF policies. To be clear, we will not tolerate violent, disruptive or aggressive acts by protestors.
Unfortunately, as you have likely seen, a protest on our Tampa campus escalated to an unsafe level that required law enforcement to intervene. The decision to intervene was not taken lightly and was based on the following facts. Beginning this morning, approximately 75-100 protestors arrived, including some students and some individuals who are not affiliated with the university. Throughout the day, USF staff members and university police remained in regular communication with protestors about the expectations for maintaining a peaceful event, including that it would need to conclude by the close of business.
However, as the day progressed, police and university staff observed participants expressing their intent to refuse to leave the site and to occupy the space through the weekend, which includes commencement. Police and university staff also observed protesters bringing in wooden shields, umbrellas, and tents. The protesters then locked arms, raised the shields and umbrellas, and communicated their intent to refuse to leave. USF Police determined that these actions were a dangerous escalation and that the protest was no longer peaceful.
USF Police made multiple attempts to inform participants that the protest must cease and that participants needed to disperse. These warnings had no effect. When participants continued to refuse to comply, law enforcement dispersed the protestors and took numerous individuals into custody in the process. It is of great concern that one of the individuals taken into custody was found to be carrying a concealed firearm. We are deeply grateful to the USF Police Department, our regional law enforcement partners, and the Student Success team for their unwavering dedication and commitment to prioritizing the safety of our community.
The university has a responsibility to maintain a safe environment on campus, including enforcing violations of Florida law and USF policies, especially after repeated warnings. Should there be additional protests on campus this week, we expect everyone to act in a peaceful manner and in a way that allows our community to prepare for final exams and commencement without disruption.
As we always have in challenging times, it’s critical that we strive to uphold our university’s values and keep our focus on how we carry out our institutional mission. We urge everyone to do their part to ensure that USF continues to be a safe and peaceful place where we treat each other with respect and empathy, even when we disagree.
Sincerely,
Rhea F. Law
President
Will Weatherford
Chair, USF Board of Trustees
— Thomas C. Tobin, Times staff
