'Night Of NIPAS' Investigates Police Response To Evanston Protest

Last fall, students at Northwestern University protested for the abolition of the University’s police department. They were met by out-of-town officers with the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System (NIPAS), which were requested by the Evanston Police Department. On Halloween, the protestors and police clashed, leading to one arrest and the extensive use of chemical agents.

Northwestern journalism students Alex Harrison and Zach Watson began researching NIPAS in late October. After Halloween, they began publishing articles on NIPAS and their presence in Evanston in the Northwestern publication Scene + Heard.

This is the introduction to their series on Halloween, titled “Night of NIPAS.” The five-article series will be published at sceneandheardnu.com from Feb. 8 to Feb. 12. Further reporting can be found on Twitter, at @alexhairysun and @whereisourtent.

Night of NIPAS

On October 31, student protestors and out-of-town police officers met in the streets of Evanston, Illinois. Three months later, we intend to better explain what occurred that night.

The Student Protestors

On October 12, 2020, four months after launching a petition that garnered thousands of signatures, students with NU Community Not Cops hit the streets.^1,2

Demanding the abolition of the Northwestern University Police, the group began holding daily protests throughout Evanston, Illinois, announcing details on Twitter and Instagram.^3,4

They started with a Monday morning march to university president Morton Schapiro’s house in Evanston.^5,6 Several dozen students showed up, holding signs and leaving chalk messages on the sidewalk.⁷

Five days later on Saturday, October 17, protestors dropped a burnt banner in front of that same house, torn from Northwestern’s Weber Arch.⁸ More than three hundred students protested as late as 12:45 a.m., in what was NUCNC’s biggest and most disruptive protest yet.⁹

Meanwhile, dozens of police officers from towns across suburban Chicago, unrelated to the University Police, quietly entered the scene.¹⁰

The Outsider Police

These police are known as NIPAS—the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System— and they did not start out as protest control.

When NIPAS formed in 1983, its services were used as an emergency backup for local police forces, described as "mutual aid" on their website. Since then, the mutual aid agreement has grown from a loose emergency plan for 15 North Shore police departments to a formalized venture covering over 100 municipalities across suburban Chicago.¹¹ Of those, 82 participate in the Mobile Field Force (MFF), a team specialized in responding to civil disturbances that individual members cannot handle on their own.¹²

Comprising around 125 officers, the MFF has its own training, equipment, and sub-teams like the Bicycle Response Team.¹³ It sees regular use by its members, especially during the Black Lives Matter protests of Summer 2020.¹⁴ Their deployment on October 17 to guard President Shcapiro’s house would be only the first encounter of an extended confrontation with NUCNC.

Over the span of two weeks, NIPAS would be put on standby or deployed to Evanston nine separate times for NUCNC protests, culminating in the volatile march of October 31.¹⁵

By the end of Halloween night, large amounts of chemical agents were dispersed, several officers claimed to be injured, at least two students requested medical attention, and one student was arrested on battery allegations.¹⁶

WHAT HAPPENED ON OCTOBER 31?

In the months since Halloween, the narrative about what occurred has largely been dictated by the police. The City of Evanston released a statement the next day denouncing protestors for violence and escalation, including claims of attempting to injure officers by throwing bricks and fireworks.¹⁷ NIPAS officers made special note of the legal observers and medics present, using them as proof that the protest was “suspect of criminal intent” from the beginning.¹⁸

In turn, both protestors and press have disputed elements of the EPD and NIPAS narrative; numerous people deny seeing any bricks thrown,^19,20 contest the accusations of malice in using lasers and fireworks,^21,22 and reject the presence of, as we discovered in one report, “members of ANTIFA” graffitiing “Anarchist symbols.”²³

One writer of this series attended the protest, and both attended others previously, as concerned Northwestern students. Acknowledging our positions as Northwestern students with a stake in changes to university policing, we have held this series and our other reporting under a microscope. We have meticulously ensured that all observations and claims made are based only on external sources, and not our personal experiences. Journalists in our position must let the reports, records, and facts speak for themselves.

With this standard in mind, we have used police documents and correspondence, photos and videos from the protest, and interviews with eyewitnesses to reconstruct a step-by-step timeline of Halloween night. This account will be spread across five articles, each focusing on a particular part of the night.

By the end, we believe a better picture of what happened on Halloween night – as well as how NIPAS and EPD communicate and operate – will become clear.

2. NU Community Not Cops. “Individual Signatories - Call for NU to invest in Black students, divest from law enforcement.” 3 June 2020.

3. NU Community Not Cops. “Twitter announcement of daily marches.” Twitter, 10 October 2020.

4. NU Community Not Cops. “Instagram announcement of 10/12 protest.” Instagram, 12 October 2020.

5. NU Community Not Cops. “Twitter announcement of 10/12 protest.” Twitter, 12 October 2020.

6. Archuleta, Chloé. “Tweet and photo from 10/12 protest.” Twitter, 12 October 2020.

7. Berke, Eden. “Tweet showing chalk messages outside President Schapiro’s house.” Twitter, 12 October, 2020.

8. NU Community Not Cops. “Tweet showing burnt mask at President Schapiro’s house.” Twitter, 18 October 2020.

9. Sarraf, Isabelle, and Binah Schatsky. “Disarm, defund, disband: Students are marching every day until Northwestern abolishes NUPD.” The Daily Northwestern, 18 October 2020.

10. NIPAS. “NIPAS activations in Evanston, 10/01 to 11/07.” FOIA Request to Vernon Hills Police Department, Released 10 November 2020.

11. NIPAS, “NIPAS website homepage.”

12. NIPAS, “NIPAS website MFF page.”

13. Weitzel, Thomas. “Weitzel’s letter to MFF chiefs.” FOIA Request to Bensenville Police Department, Released 2 December 2020.

14. Harrison, Alex. “Tweet showing NIPAS MFF Summer Tour 2020 t-shirt.” Based on FOIA Request to Northbrook Police Department, Released 17 December 2020.

15. NIPAS. “NIPAS activations in Evanston, 10/01 to 11/07.” FOIA Request to Vernon Hills Police Department, Released 10 November 2020.

16. Schatsky, Binah. “Students pepper-sprayed, one arrested during Halloween action to abolish NUPD.” The Daily Northwestern, 1 November 2020.

17. Evanston Police Department. “Evanston Police Respond to October 31 Protest in Downtown Evanston.” City of Evanston, 1 November 2020.

18. Evanston Police Department, and Kyle Popp. “Halloween incident report (#20-009537).” FOIA Request to Evanston Police Department, Released 23 November 2020.

19. Aguilar, Karina, and Vanessa Obi. “We Didn't See Any Bricks.” BlackBoard Magazine, 11 November 2020.

20. Schatsky, Binah. “Tweet regarding claim of thrown bricks.” Twitter, 18 November 2020.

21. Schatsky, Binah. “Tweet regarding use of lasers by protestors.” Twitter, 18 November 2020.

22. Schatsky, Binah. “Tweet regarding fireworks thrown by protestors.” Twitter, 18 November 2020.

23. Anonymous, and Thomas Weitzel. “Weitzel's requested report on Halloween.” FOIA Request to Skokie Police Department, Released 24 December 2020.

This release was produced by Scene + Heard. The views expressed here are the author's own.