Halimy Hall banner hangs from the top of the administrative building at the UofM (Photo/Clint Combs)
BY CLINT COMBS
Bystanders inside the University of Minnesota’s administrative building are free to leave. But there’s only one available exit on the north side of the building. It’s 80 degrees on Oct. 21, and what was once called Morrill Hall feels like an academic episode of Hoarders, with side doors tied together with bungee cords and blocked by various office supplies.
Student activists in solidarity with Palestinians, already peeved over the UofM’s policy limiting protests to 100 people and the Board of Regents 8-1 vote against divesting from assets tied to Israel, are remodeling Morrill Hall into Halimy Hall. (It’s named after Medo Halimy who died last August after shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike killed him. Halimy was a viral sensation on Tik Tok documenting daily life in Gaza.) A man, probably in his 50s, walks past an office sign that read, ‘Offices of Government and Community Relations & University Relations’. He’s heading towards the wrong exit.
Later on, I asked student activists, “What goes on in this room?” There seems to be an endless amount of cubicles in this office. But it now doubles as an expansive storage closet as activists wearing black pants, black hoodies and
Outside furniture and tables barricading a side door at the administrative building
(Photo/Clint Combs)
keffiyehs haul in various filing cabinets. One cabinet has an Obama/Biden decal sticker. “This is where the genocide is perpetuated,” one activist answered.
We walk through a hall lined with UofM banners hanging above: maroon and gold. A photographer and reporter for the student-led MN Daily follows. (Tyler Church has yet to arrive, but he’ll be temporarily cuffed and have his bags confiscated for two days – screwing his deadline for publication.)
“Follow me,” an activist wearing glasses under their keffiyeh said, pointing towards the hallway that leads to the proper exit. The man is not interested in an easy exit. He seemingly doesn’t care for the convenient escort services provided by activists with Palestinian flags on tactical vests. “You don’t want to have to undo all of that. You’ll save a lot of time if you head out that way.”
“Y’all getting sweaty in those things?” another activist walks in.
“Yeah,” the activist chuckled.
She hands me her phone, a cracked screen with UMPD’s erroneous safety notification reads: “Protestors have entered Morrill Hall on the East Bank, causing property damage and restricting entrance and exit from the building.” ABC’s Twin Cities affiliate KSTP would follow up posting that protesters “restricted the entrance and exit of the building.”
“You know you guys have your route in here. I can make my route out,
Recycle bins and office chairs barricade a doorway inside Halimy/Morrill Hall (Photo/Clint Combs)
right?” the man defiantly asked. Between him and salvation are; three office chairs (beige, green and black), an office/café table on rollers, and two bungee cables (red and green). There is an easier way, the north end.
The SAFE-U push notification advised people to, “avoid this area until further notice.” Outside the proper designated exit, a crowd is swelling to the hundreds as they chant with the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). On the second floor, Hannah Ward from MN Daily is sitting cross-legged typing away at her laptop.
“Supposed yeah,” the activist/escort answered. He’s gotta be sarcastic right?
“Can you open from that side?” a woman, who also shares his defiance against convenient exits, said to a man outside prying through a byzantine barricade.
“You guys have stuff to open it don’t you?” he says through the door.
Outside blocking this door and other doors are an assortment of outside furniture, chairs and tables stacked then tied with black bungee cables. The man attempting to rescue the bystanders is trying to pick a bike locked around furniture. “We have a door that’s open,” a familiar voice says. Is he D.C. or Marvel?
Things are scattered throughout each floor.
“Can you let me out right here?” the man asked.
A staff member inside the administrative building described this as “like a jigsaw puzzle” (Photo/Clint Combs)
“Follow me,” the escort said. “That one is not going to work. It’s double locked.”
Another protester walks in saying, “We have that way out and we have it open for you so you can leave.”
“It’s more adventurous,” the man said. Some adrenaline rushes trend on the mental side. “It’s like a jigsaw puzzle.”
After they leave, we head upstairs to the top floor where a window is open with a recycle bin and two other waste baskets doubling as fragile stepping platforms to the outside. Crawling through the window onto a rocky pavement, three activists unfurl a banner that reads ‘Halimy Hall’. I take a couple pictures, then eventually make my exit.
Not even 30 minutes later, outside the admin building, Samit Rahman’s walkie rings and there’s commotion inside. UofM’s Police Department flanked by Hennepin County Sheriff make their way through the Gopher Tunnel. They’ll be arrested, jailed, and released after their 36-hour-hold expires.
SDS Member and Math major Annie Russell-Pribnow, an activist since freshman year 2020, described Cunningham (President of the UofM System) as, “two-faced and untruthful.”
“Occupying a building was not on our bucket list. It’s an action that is risky
Three activists flag down bystanders to guide towards the only exit (Photo/Clint Combs)
with potential for extreme consequences,” Russell-Pribnow said. “But our hands were forced.”
“Everyone was safe until UMPD used a battering ram to break through our barricades in the basement,” Russell-Pribnow said. “They came up the stairs, pulled weapons on students, forced students on the ground – including an MN Daily Reporter. Several students were dogpiled.”
Student journalists face many challenges covering campus demonstrations across the country. Counter protesters at UCLA’s Palestinian encampment assaulted Christopher Buchanan, a fellow for the non-profit CalMatters; Catherine Hamilton, editor for the UCLA student-ran Daily Bruin and their staff writer Shaanth Kodialam. These attacks on the press are nothing new in the Twin Cities.
Police fired a projectile at Jared Goyette, of the Reformer, while covering the George Floyd protests. After a settlement was reached, Lt. Bob Kroll agreed not to serve Hennepin, Ramsey and Anoka counties for a decade. Kroll, through a lawyer, threatened legal action against Southside Pride’s Editor, Ed Felien, for challenging the links between MPD’s union boss and the off-duty biker club City Heat. (Kroll notoriously has a white power patch on his biker jacket.)
Activists on the rooftop of the administrative building work to hang a banner reading ‘Halimy Hall’ (Photo/Clint Combs)
Temporarily detaining MN Daily’s Church has been a rallying cry for many inside SDS. Even though Church wasn’t charged or arrested press advocates are still concerned about the actions by UMPD.
“Journalists are entitled by the First Amendment to cover protests and their aftermath, even in the limited circumstances where police can lawfully disperse protesters. That’s because how police respond to protests is highly newsworthy – especially in Minneapolis”, said Seth Stern, Director of Advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
The University of Minnesota’s Public Relations Office, Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and UMPD’s PR Dept. did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Church had his bag reclassified, then classified and held indefinitely. UMPD contacted Church later to return his belongings after the Freedom of the Press Foundation went public on the incident.
“Detaining journalists without arrest does not solve the constitutional problem because these catch-and-release arrests take the detained reporters away from the news they’re covering and deprive the public of the information it needs,” Stern said. “Usually when police release detained journalists, it’s not a show of mercy or good will – it’s an indication that they know full well that any charges wouldn’t hold up in court.”
