Minneapolis, MN – A medley of state and local police officers arrested nearly 70 protesters late at night on Jan. 28 outside of the Graduate Hotel on the University of Minnesota campus.

The arrests followed the third noise demonstration this month targeting the Graduate Hotel, a chain of hotels run by Hilton, for housing Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents.

State troopers and conservation officers from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, with the assistance of the Minneapolis Police Department and the University of Minnesota Police Department, arrested all of the protesters at the intersection of Washington Avenue SE and Walnut Street SE after forcing them back from the hotel multiple times by threatening arrests over a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, mounted on a UMNPD Jeep.

The noise demonstration began at 8 p.m. and lasted until 10 p.m., attracting hundreds of protesters to the front of the hotel to blow whistles, play trombones and shout into megaphones with the goal of preventing ICE officers from sleeping.

The police released the majority of the arrestees with a citation, but two were processed at the Hennepin County Jail on misdemeanor charges of unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct and released about 6 a.m.

At first, police demanded protesters leave the front of the hotel and the sidewalk in front of it or risk being arrested, after which protesters moved to the opposite sidewalk and continued making noise. This lasted several minutes before police demanded protesters leave the entire block, forcing protesters east on Washington Avenue, away from a wall of state police to the west, and on to the south east corner of Walnut Street SE.

Without further warning, police began ordering protesters to sit on the ground and prepare to be arrested. State police moved in from the south to prevent protesters from running, while a combination of state and local police moved in from the north to begin kettling protesters outside of the Walgreens.

Police patted down and cuffed each of the kettled protesters, walking them in groups of three or four to load them onto several vans and a bus that arrived shortly after arrests were announced.

One of the individuals kettled was a University of Minnesota student who was walking home from campus, only to get caught up in the kettle. Police would not allow him to leave and arrested him alongside the protesters.

Well before the protest was slated to begin, the hotel barricaded all lower level windows with plywood, including the Starbucks and Chick-fil-A, which had signs taped up outside ensuring customers they were still open. Surrounding the building were two layers of metal fencing, and during the protest, police were present outside, inside and on top of the building.

Floor lights were placed outside in the designated spot for the noise demo, keeping every protester perfectly illuminated as the state conservation officers routinely switched guard in the courtyard throughout the night.

The state’s use of conservation officers to quash unrest began during the George Floyd Uprising in May 2020, when the state released its first-ever “all-call,” which summoned every state trooper and DNR conservation officer in Minnesota to Minneapolis.

A block away from the hotel, along SE Union Street, several Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department vehicles were idling on the side of the road. 

The abundance of police forces comes after the Jan. 25 noise demonstration at the Home2 Suites by Hilton on University Avenue, which resulted in a major show of force by federal agents and state police after protesters vandalized the building. Federal agents were drawn to respond to the scene, immediately deploying chemical weapons, while agents inside of the building escorted masked guests out the back.

The day after the feds crashed the Home2 Suites noise demo, protesters were mass arrested by police forces in Maple Grove outside a hotel reportedly housing Greg Bovino — it was also Bovino’s last day in Minnesota after being demoted for his handling of the killing of Alex Pretti.

Hilton has been a frequent collaborator with the Department of Homeland Security, housing ICE agents in their many hotels around the country. Earlier this month, Hilton removed one of its Minnesota franchisees after it refused to house ICE agents.

On Jan. 13, the first noise demo was held outside of the Graduate. Police officers from the University of Minnesota donning riot gear guarded the lobby and later gave dispersal orders to protesters while pushing them away from the area after some vandalism occurred.

“The Graduate is where students have finals sometimes,” said an organizer of the protest after they left from the front of the hotel and rallied before a group of protesters dispersed.

“The Graduate is not a property that should be hosting ICE agents … Do you know who goes to the University of Minnesota? Immigrant students. How dare they let the ICE agents stay so close to campus and endanger our own university community. Especially after a community member was shot and killed.”

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