(NewsNation) — Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein said she may have suffered a rib fracture after she says she was knocked to the ground and assaulted by police during her arrest at a pro-Palestine protest at Washington University in St. Louis.
“Today I have really sore ribs, I’m going to the emergency room to see whether I have a rib fracture because they were using their bikes as a weapon,” Stein said during a Sunday interview on “NewsNation Prime.” “Basically ramming the handles of the bike into our chests and into my ribcage and trying to flip us over.”
Stein, 73, who was arrested Saturday, spent six hours in police custody and is facing charges of assaulting a police officer. “I wiggled out of that assault, and was told by the officer that I was assaulting him, which is absolutely ludicrous,” Stein said.
More than 100 people — including 23 students and four university employees — were arrested at the protest that called for the university to divest from Boeing and boycott Israeli academic institutions, in addition to other demands.
Stein said she was participating in a peaceful demonstration against U.S. policy in Gaza when police arrested protesters for trespassing and resisting arrest. She condemned the tactics as “the militarization of our police” trained alongside “Israeli military forces” in “anti-humane and abusive tactics.”
The three-time Green Party presidential candidate said she felt “enormous solidarity” with the student protesters, who she praised for risking their futures at the university to demand divestment from weapons companies supplying arms used against Palestinians.
Stein urged President Joe Biden to intervene and “end the genocide in Gaza and the occupation,” saying he needs to “assert the authority of his office” rather than enabling further violence approved by the Israeli government.
Stein’s campaign manager, Jason Call, and deputy campaign manager Kelly Merrill-Cayer, were also arrested according to Stein’s X account.
Stein had attempted to de-escalate the situation between protestors and police but the police were not responsive and began arrests shortly afterward, according to Stein’s X account.
Stein, who is Jewish, in a video said, “we’re going to stand here in line with the students who are standing up for democracy, standing up for human rights, standing up to end genocide.”
Protests are roiling college campuses nationwide as administrators with graduation ceremonies next month face demands that schools cut financial ties to Israel against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war.
Photos showed uniformed police attempting to remove masked protesters as others, also wearing masks, linked arms to thwart the efforts.
Megan Green, president of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, said in a social media post that she was present and the protest remained calm “until the police came in like an ambush.”
The university’s statement defended the action and said protesters “did not have good intentions on our campus and that this demonstration had the potential to get out of control and become dangerous.”
Some arrested also face charges of resisting arrest and assault, including injuries to three police officers, the statement said. Those injuries include a severe concussion, a broken finger and a groin injury.
The Missouri chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the arrests as “heavy-handed.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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