Protesters arrested, pepper sprayed by police during crackdown at VCU encampment
Students at Virginia Commonwealth University on Monday joined the chorus of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the country this week as tensions over the United States’ ongoing role in Israel’s assault on Gaza intensified. Police responded with pepper spray and arrests.
Students started an encampment on VCU’s Monroe Park campus, in the city’s downtown and a few blocks from the state Capitol. Their demands included that the university disclose any investments in Israel or in companies that support Israel, divest from those companies, as well as calling for a ceasefire and an end to the “occupation, colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and … U.S. complicity in (the) ongoing genocide,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. The students also called for hostages to be released by Israel and Hamas.
Israel launched its operations in the Gaza Strip shortly after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas, in which hundreds of Israelis were killed. Israel and its allies have rejected the idea that Israel’s operations in Gaza amount to genocide.
There were dozens of tents set up on campus by late afternoon, and VCU sent out an alert that police were on scene of a public assembly. By 8:47 p.m., VCU issued an alert reading, “Violent Protest Monroe Park. Go inside.” It’s unclear what triggered this alert. Arrests began around this time.
The university said in a statement that the demonstration violated campus policies and disrupted the week’s exams.
“VCU respectfully and repeatedly provided opportunities for those individuals involved — many of whom were not students — to collect their belongings and leave,” the statement read. “Those who did not leave were subject to arrest for trespassing.”
According to reports and videos from the scene on social media, police outfitted with helmets and shields faced off with protesters chanting “Free free Palestine!” NBC Washington reported that police began to march toward the protesters, leading to some clashes and the use of pepper spray. VCU maintenance staff were ordered to take down the tents.
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On Tuesday morning, the university said 13 people were arrested, six of whom were students, and charged with unlawful assembly and trespassing.
In posts on X, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears accused students and “significant non-student participants” across the commonwealth of throwing projectiles at law enforcement.
“I am told that these protesters seem to be well-funded and well-supplied with food, tarps, tents, and pallets,” Earle-Sears said in a post. “Once the dust settles, I think we will see this was not entirely a peaceful protest.”
Youngkin told CNN on Sunday that while freedom of expression and peaceful protest must be protected, this does not extend to “intimidating Jewish students and preventing them from attending class and using annihilation speech to express deeply anti-Semitic views.”
Students at George Mason University, the University of Mary Washington, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia have also called on their respective universities to cut ties with Israel. At Virginia Tech, 80 people were arrested including 53 current students, according to The Washington Post.
Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, gavin.stone@virginiamedia.com
