Jill Stein Handcuffed by Police at College Protest: Video

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was among dozens arrested at Washington University in St. Louis on Saturday as students continue to protest the Israel-Palestine war on college campuses across the country.

More than 80 arrests were made after students, employees and others "marched to multiple campus locations, pitched tents, and indicated that they did not intend to leave," university officials said in a statement on Saturday.

Video posted on social media by Kallie Cox, a reporter for The Riverfront Times, showed Stein being led away by officers in handcuffs.

Stein was arrested along with campaign manager Jason Call, and deputy campaign manager Kelly Merrill-Cayer, Call told Newsweek.

"The demand from the encampment was specifically for the university to divest from Boeing, which manufactures munitions used in the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza at their nearby St. Charles facility," Call said.

"The Stein campaign supports the demands of the students and their peaceful protest and assembly on campus. Student protest for peace and civil liberties has always represented the best part of our collective moral conscience. Solidarity."

"We're here to support the students who are standing up for our highest American values, for our democracy and for an end to this genocide which is unacceptable and a blight on this nation," Stein told Cox in an interview before her arrest.

"It must be stopped. The American people want it stopped. That's what these students are here standing up for."

Students have been demanding their schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies that they say are profiting from the war in Gaza in which Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, The Associated Press reported, citing the local health ministry. It erupted after Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel, when 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others were taken hostage.

Some Jewish students say the student protests have veered into antisemitism, though many Jewish students are among the protest organizers and refute those allegations.

Pro-Palestinian protest encampments spread to colleges across the U.S. and abroad in solidarity with students at Columbia University, where more than 100 students were arrested last week after university officials called in police to clear an encampment on campus lawn. Since then, other universities have also moved to shut down student encampments and arrest hundreds of demonstrators.

Washington University's statement said that the protesters on Saturday had entered the campus "with the intention of causing significant disruption."

It said: "It quickly became clear through the words and actions of this group that they did not have good intentions on our campus and that this demonstration had the potential to get out of control and become dangerous."

When the protesters began to set up a camp in violation of the university's policy, officials "made the decision to tell everyone present that they needed to leave," the university said. "We arrested more than 80 individuals who refused to leave after being asked multiple times." Those individuals will face trespassing charges, and some could also be charged with resisting arrest and assault, according to the university.

Megan Green, president of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen and an adjunct professor at the university, said in a post on X that the university's statement is "wild and absolutely false."

"There was no turn at the protests other than students sat down to eat and some left to go to the bathroom. Completely calm, until the police came in like an ambush," Green wrote.

"Simply a tactic to scare folks and try to discredit the protests. The only aggressors were the police and the university who called in 6 police departments to respond."

The university and Megan Green have been contacted for further comment via email.

Update 4/28/2024, 9:36 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to add a comment from the Jill Stein campaign.