An anti-police student activist group at Northwestern University rioted this weekend, launching fireworks and bricks at police officers and vandalizing city property.
Officers say that about 150 students involved with the "NU Community Not Cops" activist group gathered on Saturday night to call on Northwestern officials to abolish the school's police department.
Evanston, Ill., police chief Demetrius Cook said his department allowed the protest to continue until students began throwing projectiles, including bricks and fireworks, at officers. Protesters also graffitied traffic signs and damaged other city property, the police said in a statement.
The riot follows a recent squabble between NU Community Not Cops and university president Morton Schapiro, which began last month after the group led six consecutive nights of protests on campus.
During that time, students marched to Schapiro's home and chanted the anti-Semitic slur "Piggy Morty." As the Washington Free Beacon reported, students also graffitied signs around the university and vandalized the school's Weber Arch.
Those protests prompted Schapiro to condemn the group's violence and anti-Semitism in an Oct. 19 statement. Some of the school's faculty responded to the president's statement by siding with NU Community Not Cops in a "Letter of Concern" they wrote last week.
NU Community Not Cops has protested daily since Oct. 12, according to the Daily Northwestern. Evanston mayor Stephen Hagerty said he believes the group's protests have cost city police tens, if not hundreds, of thousands in overtime dollars.