Pro-Palestinian demonstrators arrested at U-M appear in court on felony charges
Seven pro-Palestinian demonstrators who were arrested last year on the University of Michigan campus faced a judge Wednesday in Ann Arbor.
The case tests the boundaries between constitutionally protected free speech and public order.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged them in September with resisting and obstructing police, a felony punishable by up to two years in prison as well as misdemeanor assault charges. She said they used "physical force to counter" the police officers who were trying to clear them from an encampment they had established on the diag.
The defendants in the cases are: Oliver Kozler, Samantha Lewis, Henry MacKeen-Shapiro, Michael Mueller, Asad Siddiqui, Avi Tachna-Fram and Rhiannon Willow. Kozler is a student at the school but it's unclear how many other defendants are or were.
All seven have pleaded not guilty.
Fire Marshal Andrew Box testified that beginning in April, protesters began erecting tents on the diag, surrounding them with a perimeter of rope with tarps or bedsheets draped over it. Later that perimeter was beefed up to include chicken wire staked into the ground.
He noted several fire concerns including tents and tarps he described as made from highly combustible materials. He said he spotted a can of gasoline sitting in direct sunlight near a generator and little room for egress.
David Marshall, director of university safety and security services, testified that he had visited the encampment on the diag repeatedly in May to meet with protesters and alert them they were in violation of the law.
On either May 18 or 19, he couldn't remember precisely, Marshall said he was in a Zoom meeting with his boss, Robert Neumann; University President Santa Ono, and the Board of Regents of the university to discuss how to address the encampment.
"I was to prepare a plan, to as safely as possible ... remove the tents and the people safely from the diag," he said. "The group was in consensus to have this done. They wanted to have the division of public safety to do it. I didn't hear any objection."
Marshall said the meeting established a window of time for the operation to clear the encampment. The decision was made to do it at 5:40 a.m. May 21. About 100 law enforcement officers from the university, the city of Ann Arbor, the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office and the Michigan State Police prepared to clear the encampment.
Marshall said that he was in charge of the operation and used a megaphone to read an order of dispersal to the protesters. Moments later, the protesters began fortifying the encampment with logs, cinder blocks, tables and other items, he said.
That's when, Marshall said, he gave the officers the order to move forward toward the protesters. The individual officers who were named in the complaints as having been resisted or obstructed by the protesters were expected to testify later Wednesday afternoon.
Before the hearing, the defendants entered the courtroom as a group. Some of them wore keffiyehs, as did some members of the court gallery and one of the defense attorneys, Amir Maklid. Some of the defense attorneys also wore Palestinian flag lapel pins.
Five Washtenaw County sheriff's deputies lined the courtroom enforcing the capacity limit of 55 people and instructed visitors to remove their hats.
Additional members of the gallery were gathered in the hallway outside. By lunch time, two signs were placed in a courthouse window near the lobby reading "Drop the charges divest now" and "Dana Nessel drop the charges."
The case is one of several court cases related to protests over the war in Gaza.
Because these defendants face felony charges, they were entitled to a preliminary examination, a hearing before District Court Judge Cedrick Simpson to determine if there is enough evidence to send them to trial in circuit court. The defendants all appeared at the same hearing, with their attorneys taking turns questioning prosecution witnesses.
In December, six members of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, (SAFE) a Palestinian solidarity group on campus, sued the university, claiming it violated their constitutional rights by selectively targeting peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators for their beliefs and subjecting them to disciplinary proceedings and suspensions.
Earlier this month, five more people sued U-M claiming the school violated their rights by effectively banning them from campus with overly broad trespassing citations. Kozler, one of defendants in today's hearing, is one of the plaintiffs in that case.
Both of those lawsuits are pending in federal court.
Contact John Wisely: jwisely@freeepress.com. On X @jwisely
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pro-Palestinian demonstrators arrested at U-M appear in court
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