Police have shut down a tent encampment protesting Israel at Wayne State University and arrested several demonstrators, an official with the university said.
Just before 5:30 a.m., university police, with Detroit police as backup, moved in to break up the encampment that was set up a week ago on May 23.
“Occupants of the encampment are gone,” Matt Lockwood, a spokesman for Wayne State, told the Free Press this morning. “And the cleanup crew is here, removing the leftover things that people didn’t take with them. The encampment is over.”
Lockwood said the protesters were given warnings by police before they moved in.
“The police got here a little before 5:30,” Lockwood said. “They told the occupants that it was time to go. They made an announcement over a PA system so that there could be no denying that people heard it at 5:33, at 5:43. And at 5:47, they were given a last warning. And then whoever was left at that point, Wayne State University police moved in and kind of ushered everybody off campus.”
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Wayne State alumni and community activist Sahar Faraj, speaks next to Lexis Zeidan