Thread by @yaledailynews

BREAKING: Cops have gathered at Beinecke Plaza, where pro-Palestine protesters urging Yale to divest from military weapons manufacturers set up tents overnight — the third night of their ongoing encampment. More than 12 police officers have blocked off entrances to the Plaza. 🧵

About 40 protesters are walking toward the Plaza’s main exit, which is taped off. About 30 are still around the flagpole. Some officers are approaching the encampment’s tents.

Of the roughly 12 cops inside the Plaza, it seems that two are flipping up the entrances to the tents.

Four more officers have entered the Plaza.

Six officers just told the six students — including two members of the News — who are perched on the Plaza wall that if they did not move immediately, they would also be arrested. An officer issued members of the News three warnings of arrest in less than two minutes.

Eleven people have been arrested according to a Yale police officer. Organizers told the News that at least some of the people arrested have been students.

A second van containing about six arrested protesters has driven away from Schwarzman Center and south up College Street.

Sixteen total arrests have been made.

Lt. Vacino of the Yale Police Department, who drove the van, said the protesters would be written up and released.

Yale Police Lieutenant Roosevelt Martinez told the News that students were arrested for trespassing.

He did not say how many were arrested and refused to say where protesters had been taken in Yale shuttles. Martinez said they were going somewhere for “processing.”

About 200 protesters are on the side of Schwarzman facing the intersection of College and Grove Streets. They are chanting “One, we are the people. Two, we won’t be silenced. Three, stop the violence now, now, now, now” and “resistance is justified, when people are occupied.”

Police officers have taken at least four more of the protesters circled around the flagpole into custody. The News counts about 10 people still around the flagpole.

Yale Police is blocking press entry on Beinecke Plaza; cops earlier today threatened to News staffers and issued three warnings in less than two minutes.

A fourth shuttle has arrived at Schwarzman Center on College Street. At least 15 more protesters have been arrested and are boarding the shuttle.

Both protesters remaining on the Plaza have been arrested. No students are left on the Plaza.

A crowd of over 200 protesters is blocking the intersection of Grove and College Streets. Organizers announced that people arrested are being charged with Class A misdemeanors.

“Do we look like criminals?" they asked the crowd.

The more than 300 protesters continue to block the intersection. There were more than 40 officers on the scene; they have now almost all entered the Schwarzman Center rotunda and are not allowing students inside.

Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell told the News that between 40 to 45 total protesters have been arrested and charged with trespassing, a Class A misdemeanor. He declined to tell the News where they have been taken for processing but said they would be released once processed.

He said they had issued a warning to protesters on the plaza last night at 11:00 p.m. and another this morning shortly before 7:00 a.m. before moving in for arrests.

Campbell estimated he had 50 to 60 officers on the scene and said New Haven Police had a contingent as well.

When asked about the hundreds of protesters blocking the intersection of College and Grove, Campbell said that streets fall under NHPD jurisdiction. NHPD Chief Karl Jacobson previously said YPD was in charge. When informed of this difference, Campbell said he'd talk to Jacobson.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker told the News that 15 to 20 officers from the New Haven Police Department are currently at the scene.

“People have a right to protest, but it has to be done in a safe way, by the rules of the law,” Elicker said. “Our focus is on safety.”

Mayor Elicker said that he called University President Peter Salovey last night to speak about the protest. He said that Salovey told him the city has been supportive. Elicker clarified that YPD, not the University, had reached out requesting support from NHPD.

A Yale police officer told the News he doesn’t expect Beinecke to be open “anytime soon” but refused to provide an exact time.

All but four of the tents in front of the Schwarzman Center have been taken down by maintenance workers. There were more than 40 on the Plaza as of last night.

There are currently more than 350 protesters blocking the intersection of Grove and College Streets.

Most protesters have now sat down on the road. A protester is playing the drums in the center of the circle while some others dance.

Craig Birckhead-Morton ’24 was arrested at the flagpole on Beinecke Plaza this morning and said he was processed around 8 a.m. at a “secondary site” on Amistad Street, then released. He was charged with trespassing in the first degree. His court date is May 8.

The final standing tent in front of the Schwarzman Center has been taken down. The Plaza is now completely clear except for a couple of bookshelves.

Birckhead-Morton addressed the crowd sitting down in the College and Grove Street intersection.

“I was arrested by the Yale Police Department. Because of your support, they couldn’t even take me out the back door. We have changed the landscape of the city and the country.”

An apparent counter-protester is in the middle of the circle, raising a small sign with a picture of an Israeli hostage. She is shouting “Am Israel Chai” but is drowned out by the protesters’ chants.

Marshals have been using keffiyehs to block her from the other protesters.

A group of around five demonstrators walking on Alexander Walk shouted “shame on you” and “useless pigs” to two police officers standing in front of Beinecke Plaza.

“Thank you,” one officer responded.

Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis said that after over five hours of negotiations with organizers yesterday, he extended the deadline for a deal multiple times but “could not go past midnight.”

Lewis said the final deal included a meeting with the chair of the Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility, no punishment for previous trespassing and a meeting with him. After rejecting the offer, organizers were given until 6 a.m. today to leave without being arrested.

“There would have been [no] arrests and no disciplinary action except for instances of violence, threats, harassment, or intimidation,” Lewis wrote.

He emphasized that this was the third night administrators offered students the opportunity to de-escalate.

Protesters are chanting about the policing relationship between Yale and New Haven.

“[Police] try to keep Yale students safe from the residents of the city,” they chanted.

“Ain’t no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don’t stop," they continued.

A University spokesperson told the News that 47 students have been arrested. Those students will be referred for Yale disciplinary action — which could include reprimand, probation or suspension.

When asked why Yale cannot disclose investments, College Dean Lewis wrote that the University has a “number of contractual obligations” that prevent disclosure.

“I have no doubt that the students acted in good faith, but I think their leaders gave them bad advice,” he wrote.

Patrick Hayes ’24, an organizer of the encampment, wrote to the News with a response to Lewis’ account of the students refusing an offer of meetings with trustees, including one on the Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility.

"We told him we were willing to keep a peaceful encampment as Trustees assessed what, if any commitment could be made to disclosure, and that we understood this could take time," Hayes wrote. "We negotiated in good faith..."

"...but with no commitment to even assess disclosure of any kind we could not accept the offer," he said.

Protesters have written and drawn with chalk in the Grove Street and College Street intersection. Messages include “disclose, divest,” “The people united will never be defeated” and “Black solidarity with Palestine.”

Protesters continue to shout chants, such as, “Salovey, you can’t hide, you’re funding genocide.”

“We’ve got food, we’ve got coffee, we’ve got water and we are going to be here for a while," one student announced.

“We’re going to be here all fucking day,” an organizer in the center of the circle told protesters through a megaphone.

Members of Latin dance group Sabrosura, which canceled their performance at Salovey’s farewell dinner on Friday, are slated to hold a salsa workshop today.

“We don’t need Beinecke to occupy,” a protester announced. “Let’s get performances going, let’s get speakers going.”

A Yale Hospitality worker said Yale is “still figuring out what to do with the protesters.” He added that he anticipated that Commons would open in an “hour or two”. The News heard YPD officers saying that Commons would remain closed to students but open to feed officers.

As of 8:46 a.m., over 1,500 University alumni, parents and graduating seniors had signed a pledge to withhold donations until Yale divests. The group sent the News a press release outlining their support for students demanding divestment in the wake of dozens of student arrests.

“While Yale students put their bodies on the line to stand in solidarity with Gaza, the least we can do as alumni is pledge our support for their cause and urge Yale to accept its students’ demands,” Ryan Gittler-Muñiz ’20 wrote in the statement.

There will be a Seder to honor Passover at 5:30 p.m. at the intersection of Grove and College, per Shelly Altman, a leader with Jewish Voice for Peace — a New Haven organization pushing for a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

“Passover is a story of liberation and goes back thousands of years. But we need to bring the liberation story to our current day and to our current lives … today Grove and College Street are our liberation square,” said Altman.

New Haven police chief Karl Jacobson said that as of 1:15 p.m., NHPD had received no reports of violence from the protest today or at any point during the encampment. 

He added that officers have not used riot gear but do have it accessible.

For now, Jacobson said there are no plans to disperse the crowd unless protesters begin to set up tents. If tents are set up, he said, New Haven police will “immediately” disperse the entire crowd.

“I’d rather work with everybody here, not against,” he told the News.

A man in a yarmulke and an Israel Defense Forces zip-up has begun a small counter-protest. He is chanting, “Stop attacking Israel,” and repeating “evil, evil!” and “stop supporting terrorism!” The central protest has picked up in response.

The protest remains peaceful.

Yale College Dean Lewis wrote to the News about an email he sent colleagues this morning, which circulated on social media. In the email, Lewis attributed “increased danger at recent protests” to “non-Yale protesters with a known history of violent confrontation with the police.”

“My email regarding the protest at Grove and Prospect was mistaken and I apologize for the suggestion that the protesters might turn violent,” Lewis wrote to the News in the late afternoon. “I was repeating speculation I had overheard and I should not have done so.”

In an email just over an hour ago, Yale President Peter Salovey wrote that the morning arrest of 47 pro-divestment student protesters was because students did not heed administrators’ warnings. Salovey also described possible disciplinary action.

More: yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/04/2…

Protesters have moved from Schwarzman to Cross Campus. About 150 people — both protesters and students already on Cross — are on the grass. Protesters’ chants include “Two, four, six, eight, Israel is a terror state” and “From the sea to river, Palestine will live forever.”

NHPD Public Information Officer Bruckhart told the News that NHPD will not issue a dispersal warning because protesters are vacating the intersection.

In Cambridge, Harvard suspended the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee. This follows news that Harvard Yard will be closed to the public until Friday due to “potential issues with non-Harvard recognized groups.”

Our peers @thecrimson: thecrimson.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=…

Around 125 people gathered for the Jews for Ceasefire protest Seder on Cross Campus. Attendees of the Seder remained on Cross Campus and were concentrated around a cardboard model rocket, was erected shortly after the Seder began, with the message “BOOKS NOT BOMBS” painted on it.

About 40 people have started to pray Maghrib on the upper half of Cross Campus. Around 100 more people are sitting on the lawn and looking on, though — like with the Seder — it is difficult to discern whether they are protesters or passersby.

Around 125 people on Cross Campus are chanting “Say it loud, say it clear, liberation is here” and “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” as well as some chants in Arabic. 

There are four Yale police officers standing in front of Sterling Memorial Library.

YPD Lieutenant Halstead told the News that YPD received reports of confrontations between protesters on Saturday night. To avoid conflicts tonight, Halstead said that YPD officers will be around to observe and respond as necessary.