The Michigan Attorney General's office said Thursday that a series of law enforcement actions the day before were part of a "yearlong investigation into coordinated criminal acts of vandalism and property damage occurring in multiple counties in southeastern Michigan."
The Tahrir Coalition, an association of pro-Palestinian groups at the University of Michigan, had characterized the actions of police as "raids," saying they appeared to target its members who had been part of demonstrations on campus calling for divestment from Israel and an end to the war in Gaza.
Liz Jacob, a staff attorney at Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, represents the Tahrir Coalition alongside other pro-Palestinian advocacy groups at U of M. She said she got some panicked phone calls Wednesday morning at about 7 a.m. from activists who were woken up by officers at their doorstep.
“They had no idea who these officers were,” Jacob said. “They had no idea what this was about. In some cases, they didn't even get to see a search warrant before their doors were broken in. They were totally stunned by this, completely shocked.”
“At the time that the searches were conducted, no one who was implicated in the searches received any information about what the probable cause was underlying the search,” Jacob said. “On the warrants themselves and what the folks were told at the time, there was no information provided to them what the probable cause was.”
The attorney general's account Thursday differed. "An entryway was forcibly breached following more than an hour of police efforts to negotiate entry to satisfy the court-authorized search warrant," Dana Nessel's office said in a statement.
The attorney general's office disputed the assertion that law enforcement was targeting people for their pro-Palestinian speech. The office's statement listed 12 locations where it said acts of vandalism and property damage had taken place.
"It is currently estimated that the total damage from these incidents is approximately $100,000," the statement said.
"In all cases, the crimes were committed in the middle of the night and in one case upon a residence wherein children were sleeping and awoken. In multiple instances, windows were smashed, and twice, noxious chemical substances were propelled into homes. At every site, political slogans or messages were left behind."
Jacob said officers handcuffed some of the U of M community members in the homes where the raids took place, despite complying with officers’ orders.
Nessel's office said no one was arrested.
Editor's note: The University of Michigan holds Michigan Public's broadcast license.
