Police arrest two dozen protesters

Protester arrest
Police officers handcuff protestors at the Univ. of Minnesota. Neither person arrested is a student.
MPR Photo/Art Hughes

Police say they arrested two dozen people at an anti-war rally on the University of Minnesota campus today.

Those arrested blocked the entrance to a National Guard recruiting office near campus.

The arrests happened after about 200 students and others rallied in opposition to the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq. Many of the protesters marched through campus and down University Avenue before collecting at the three military recruiting centers on the University campus.

Memorial Union crowd
A crowd gathers in front of Coffman Memorial Union. We're looking at the back of organizer Erika Zurawski speaking to the crowd.
MPR Photo/Art Hughes

Organizer Erika Zurawski with Students for a Democratic Society said she hopes the demonstration spurs some action that gets students' attention.

"And I want students to engage themselves in being opposed to this war and really start to come out into the streets in a way that we haven't seen in recent years," Zurawski told the crowd.

Police did not arrest a handful of students who chained themselves to nearby Army and Navy recruiting offices, because the offices were closed and the students were not blocking the flow of traffic.