Michigan AG's office says "coordinated criminal acts" led police to raid homes of pro-Palestinian UM students
The Michigan Attorney General's office said Thursday that a series of law enforcement actions the day before were part of a "yearlong investigation into coordinated criminal acts of vandalism and property damage occurring in multiple counties in southeastern Michigan."
The Tahrir Coalition, an association of pro-Palestinian groups at the University of Michigan, had characterized the actions of police as "raids," saying they appeared to target its members who had been part of demonstrations on campus calling for divestment from Israel and an end to the war in Gaza.
Liz Jacob, a staff attorney at Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, represents the Tahrir Coalition alongside other pro-Palestinian advocacy groups at U of M. She said she got some panicked phone calls Wednesday morning at about 7 a.m. from activists who were woken up by officers at their doorstep.
“They had no idea who these officers were,” Jacob said. “They had no idea what this was about. In some cases, they didn't even get to see a search warrant before their doors were broken in. They were totally stunned by this, completely shocked.”
“At the time that the searches were conducted, no one who was implicated in the searches received any information about what the probable cause was underlying the search,” Jacob said. “On the warrants themselves and what the folks were told at the time, there was no information provided to them what the probable cause was.”
https://www.michiganpublic.org/criminal-justice-legal-system/2025-04-25/ags-office-says-law-enforcement-raids-part-of-investigation-into-coordinated-criminal-acts