19 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested for trying to occupy UPenn building

The University of Pennsylvania police arrested 19 pro-Palestinian protesters Friday night after they allegedly tried to occupy a campus building, the school said.

The university's police department said the protesters, the majority of whom were not students, attempted to get into Fisher-Bennett Hall when campus officers and officers from the Philadelphia Police Department intervened.

Officers were seen scuffling with protesters and several people were taken away in handcuffs.

The protest group Penn Gaza Solidarity said in a release that it was planning on occupying the building.

"The demands of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment remain: disclose Penn's investments, divest from the Israeli apartheid state, and defend pro-Palestine protestors and scholars," Penn Gaza Solidarity said in a statement.

The group has not officially commented about the arrests as of Saturday afternoon.

UPenn said in a statement Saturday morning that six of the 19 protesters were students.

"Twelve were issued citations for failure to disperse and failure to follow police commands and later released. Seven remain in custody awaiting felony charges, including one for assaulting a police officer," the school said.

Before dispersing just before 11 p.m., demonstrators marched from the campus to the Penn Museum and then to Franklin Field, where the school plans on holding its commencement on Monday.

UPenn claimed that campus officers found "lock-picking tools and homemade metal shields fashioned from oil drums."

"The exit doors had been secured with zip-ties, barbed wire, and barricaded with metal chairs and desks, and the windows were covered over with newspaper and cardboard," the school alleged.

Last week, officers dismantled an encampment on the College Green, which lasted for two weeks.