The Chicago police arrested at least 55 people, including three journalists, at a protest outside the city’s Israeli consulate on Tuesday night, officials said on Wednesday as they prepared for a fourth day of demonstrations surrounding the Democratic National Convention.
Police officials described the pro-Palestinian protest on Tuesday as violent and a threat to the city, and said officers tried to de-escalate the situation before making arrests. Several dozen demonstrators angry over the war in Gaza chanted, made speeches and scuffled with police officers in front of a downtown office tower that houses the consulate. The consulate was never breached.
“We were not the initiators of violence, but we responded to it,” said Larry Snelling, the Chicago police superintendent, who said two protesters were treated at a hospital and two police officers were injured. He added: “We will not allow people to come in this city, disrespect it and destroy it.”
A leader of a group that organized the protest, Behind Enemy Lines, criticized the law enforcement response and said demonstrators should have been allowed to march nearly two miles from the consulate to the arena hosting the convention. The scuffling began after demonstrators linked arms and pressed forward into a line of police officers. The police began arresting people and issued an order that people leave the area.
“The intention was to march to the D.N.C.,” Michael Boyte, a co-founder of the group, said late on Tuesday night. “Instead of our people being allowed to march to the convention,” he said, the city had sent in police officers.
In a statement, the Israeli consulate in Chicago said that the protest was “anything but peaceful and completely contradictory to the spirit” of the Democrats’ convention.
Mr. Snelling said that between 55 and 60 people were arrested at the protest, and that officials were not able to specify what charges those people might face.
Nearly half of the people who were arrested were not Chicago residents, Mr. Snelling said at a news conference, adding that the number could rise as the police determine the identities of more of the arrested protesters.
Mr. Snelling suggested that the journalists who were arrested did not comply when officers ordered people to disperse. “There were multiple times where we attempted to get in, but there were so many journalists around and they were so close that it created a problem for us moving in,” he said.
Because officials did not release the names of arrestees or the charges against them, it was not possible to immediately verify those claims.
Protests, largely focused on anger over the war in Gaza and the Biden administration’s support of Israel, have taken place in Chicago since Sunday and provided a counterpoint to the image of liberal unity that allies of Vice President Kamala Harris have sought to project at the convention.
On Sunday, several hundred activists marched down Michigan Avenue seeking protections for abortion rights and L.G.B.T.Q. people, as well as an end to the war in Gaza. On Monday, as the convention began, thousands of protesters, though fewer than activists had expected, marched for hours through the streets. A small group from that march breached a security fence near the convention hall and threw water bottles and wooden sticks at police officers.
Another pro-Palestinian protest was expected on Wednesday afternoon, hours before Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the vice-presidential nominee, was expected to speak to delegates.
Though the Wednesday protest, like the one on Tuesday, was not planned with a permit from the city, Mr. Snelling said officers intended to work with demonstrators to allow them to speak.
“It’s going to start with respect for people’s First Amendment rights,” Mr. Snelling said on Wednesday morning. “If things change, and we make an assessment that we need to do something different, we will do that, but we will respect people’s rights to protest.”
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