The case of seven people charged with resisting arrest and trespassing during a police raid on an encampment at the University of Michigan will have another day in court.
Following two full days of preliminary hearings, District Court Judge J. Cedric Simpson asked attorneys to submit briefs and return to the courtroom on April 7. Simpson will consider those briefs along with testimony presented by several fire and public safety officials to determine whether there is enough evidence for a jury trial.
The U of M encampment mirrored many such extended protests at colleges across the country. Students and community members taking part did so to voice concern about the scale of Israel’s bombardment and siege of Gaza following the October 7 Hamas-led attack, and to demand universities divest from Israeli companies and currency.
U of M’s Board of Regents declined to meet with protesters on the Diag and have repeatedly said it would not change the investment portfolio. As the encampment grew, they investigated fire and safety issues, and called for a “clean up” of the Diag.
After nearly a month of visits from university staff, U of M leaders developed a plan that involved more than 100 people from various agencies including the Ann Arbor Police, the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department, and the Michigan State Police to clear the encampment.
Just before 5:40 a.m. on May 21, around 40 law enforcement officers in protective gear formed a line and police issued orders to protesters to vacate the premises.
Seven of the protesters arrested as a part of that dispersal effort face a maximum two year sentence if they are found guilty of resisting arrest under a broadly written state law that includes “assaulting, battering, resisting, obstructing, [and] opposing” officers. They also face misdemeanor trespass charges. Four of the defendants were U of M students at the time of the raid.
The seven defendants refused plea deals before the preliminary exam hearing began on February 12. They maintain their innocence.
Leading the prosecutions, Assistant Attorney General Shawn Ryan called six witnesses to the stand to help make the state’s case that the protesters actively resisted orders when a line of officers in protective gear moved forward to clear the encampment. The orders were given to proceed with what she repeatedly described as a “restoration and cleanup operation.”
University public safety officials and the fire marshal inspected the encampment site on numerous occasions, but none seem to have given an official order to disperse until the morning of the raid.
Andrew Box, the university’s fire marshal, described the encampment as a “fortress” during his court testimony, and said it would be hard to escape should it catch fire. Box said he was dispatched to the encampment in mid-April and saw overloaded surge protectors, a canister of gasoline, and a generator as cause for concern. He said he ordered police on the scene to remove them. Box admitted that he wasn’t aware if the officers had complied, though he didn’t see those items during his next visit nearly a month later.
David Marshall, of U of M’s Department of Public Safety, testified that he had also visited the encampment on a number of occasions — six times over the course of four weeks. He said he spoke to individuals who wore orange vests and identified themselves as “encampment liaisons” on some of those visits, telling them to clear the area. The liaisons said they could convey the message to the group, but Marshall said he found that more tents were added.
Marshall said he was called into a Zoom meeting sometime on the weekend before the dispersal effort with University President Santa Ono, all if not most of the University Regents, and the then-Director of Public Safety to develop a plan to remove the tents from the Diag.
“[W]hat was determined was there would be a window that was based on the circumstances in the Diag … without a firm exact date,” Marshall said.
Then, around 5:30 in the morning on May 21, Marshall took to the steps of the graduate library overlooking the Diag to execute the plan, reading a written dispersal order into a bullhorn.
The order allowed for a 10-minute window so people could leave the encampment, but the police line moved forward after less than seven minutes, based on police video presented in court.
U of M Public Safety Sergeant Karl Wancha was one of the officers assigned to clear the encampment. He said about 40 officers moved forward in a line, pressing their batons forward as they marched and calling out the order to “move back.”
Protesters put objects including logs, tables, and chairs between them and the police line, though whether they “threw” those items at law enforcement came into question — as did the issue of compliance.
Jamil Khuja, the attorney for one of the defendants, Michael Mueller, a student at the time of the encampment, pressed Wancha about the command he and other officers issued.
“The order is ‘move back’, correct, right?” Khuja asked. “And when somebody moves backwards, that is complying with the order, right?”
“Malicious compliance, not full compliance,” Wancha replied.
The body camera footage from another officer, Justin Berent, showed police hitting Mueller with pepper spray. He drew his arms up toward his face and wiped his glasses. His shirt appeared to be soaked in places by pepper spray.
Berent testified that Mueller hooked his arm around the officer’s baton. Khuja tried to make the case that the officer put his baton in the crook of Mueller’s arm.
Not long after, the video showed another officer’s baton strike Mueller in the back. He and another defendant, Sammie Lewis, fell away from police and into a tent.
Khuja pressed on the direction they were facing when they fell.
“If they are turning around and walking away from you, they are now in compliance, correct?" said Khuja.
“They are complying for that moment, sure,” Berent replied. He disagreed however, that there was no reason to use physical force against people who had turned away from officers.
Defense attorneys made the point that officers didn’t clarify where they wanted the protesters to move to, exactly. But Berent said they only temporarily complied with orders to move back.
“Simply put, the administration wanted them gone, correct?” Khuja asked.
Berent responded, “They needed to leave so that [the Diag] could be cleaned.”
Judge Simpson asked for lawyers to submit briefs, noting that defense attorneys could focus on any claims they have regarding free speech.
Some of the defense attorneys wore lapel pins featuring the Palestinian flag to signal their support of their clients’ cause.
The court gallery remained full of observers supporting the seven defendants during the preliminary exams. Many of them had keffiyehs — a symbol of Palestinian resistance — draped around their shoulders or tied around their heads. Others gathered in the lobby, sharing boxes of donuts. At one point, a small group of supporters gathered outside the courthouse to offer prayers.
“People will keep showing up to court,” Sammie Lewis, one of the defendants said. “People will show up outside of court as well to organize against the charges, against [State Attorney General] Dana Nessel, and [the] Board of Regents — and not only to drop the charges, but to protest the genocide that's happening in Gaza.”
In September, Nessel stepped in to prosecute the cases against the protesters.
In a statement announcing charges against the group, she said, "The right to free speech and assembly is fundamental, and my office fully supports every citizen’s right to free speech under the First Amendment,” said Nessel. “However, violent and criminal behavior, or acts that trample on another’s rights, cannot be tolerated.”
Nessel also cited “the multi-jurisdictional nature of the protest activity.”
The ACLU of Michigan pushed back on that claim since all of the charges so far were filed in Washtenaw County.
“While civil disobedience by its nature assumes that there will be consequences, the actions by the state Attorney General are an unnecessary escalation,” the civil rights organization said in a statement, “taking those consequences outside of the university and even outside of the local elected prosecutors’ jurisdiction to the state.”
Nessel’s statement indicated that additional charges related to protests at the Regents’ houses might follow.
Editor's note: The University of Michigan owns Michigan Public's broadcast license.
