The news that Denver’s police chief refused a second request by school officials to clear the pro-Palestinian encampment on the Auraria Campus raised several questions and appeared to diminish the school administrators’ leverage in their efforts to persuade the protesters to tear down their tents.

Police Chief Ron Thomas told a citizens oversight board on Friday that his department has no plans to participate in another sweep of the pro-Palestinian encampment, which has grown substantially larger since Denver officers backed up the Auraria Campus police in dismantling roughly a dozen tents and arresting about 40 protesters last week.

Thomas said the April 26 sweep’s objective was to remove the tents — because they violated campus policy and the protesters were, therefore, trespassing — but that the Auraria Campus police just left them behind.

“As you might imagine, they just came and re-erected the tents and we were back at square one,” Thomas said. “At which point in time they asked us to come back and engage in the operation again, and that’s when I shut it down and said I’m not doing that again.”

By that time, the crowd had grown larger and he didn’t think it was safe to move back in, Thomas said. 

Thomas said he is aware of — and the police have been involved in — the negotiations to remove the tents.  

“I’ve been explaining to the leadership at AHEC (Auraria Higher Education Center) that we absolutely aren’t going to just go in and sweep out this peaceful protest just because they’re occupying a space on your campus that you’d like to use for something else right now and because of your fears that maybe this could grow to the point that it interferes with other campus activities,” the police chief said.

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Auraria Campus officials could not be immediately reached to confirm they had asked Thomas to dismantle the encampments again and that he rejected their plea. 

In statement on Friday, the campus said officials met with the protesters anew to “maintain an open dialogue and find a peaceful path forward for our campus community.”

“The discussion provided an opportunity for all parties to be heard. MSU Denver and CU Denver are actively setting up campus dialogue sessions as a way to engage our community. We will continue to support and encourage peaceful debate and civil engagement on our campus while ensuring the safety of our students, employees, and visitors,” campus officials said.

The latter is an oft-repeated refrain from the campus authorities. 

But Thomas’ comments — the police chief also said there’s “no legal way” to sweep the encampment “unless they truly do something that creates an unlawful assembly and there’s no intelligence at this point to suggest that’s imminent” — potentially raised a conundrum for campus officials.

Without the backing of the Denver police, have the officials lost some leverage? If yes, to what extent?   

The pro-Palestinian protesters said they are prepared to “defend” the encampment until their demands — notably divestment from companies that operate in Israel — are met.

Pro-Palestinian protesters reject Auraria Campus' offer of $15,000 donation to Gaza in exchange for dismantling encampment

A former Denver police official told The Denver Gazette that, to a large extent, the ball now falls squarely in the court of the Auraria Campus administrators.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to share his thoughts candidly, said that, in order for the Denver Police Department to act, campus authorities must be willing to pursue trespassing charges against the protesters in court. That means a signed complaint submitted to the police outlining their willingness to litigate. 

But doing so would mean campus authorities are going after their own students, the source said.

Hence, the dilemma for university officials, the source speculated, adding, “So, the $64,000 question is what will the campus officials do?”

The source said the Auraria Campus police and the Denver Police Department have an agreement that outlines mutual aid, giving the city department responsibility, for example, over more serious crimes because the latter has more resources to investigate them. 

The source, a veteran police officer familiar with protest actions, said “autonomous” zones — via an encampment, for example — should not have been allowed to get established in the first place. 

Once that foothold is gained or allowed to grow, it would pose a more and more difficult challenge for the police, he said. 

“Nothing good comes out of an autonomous zone,” the former official said, adding, “The sooner they deal with them, the better.”

He said for campus officials to “putt your head in the sand” won’t cut it. 

In the Friday morning meeting with the citizens oversight board, Thomas said the Auraria Campus authorities don’t really have the ability to bring in “some private security group in order to do something we’re not willing to do.” And the campus police is such a small department it doesn’t have the resources to do a sweep without the assistance of the Denver police or the State Patrol. 

That means campus officials can only act “at our behest whether they like it or not,” Thomas said, adding “nothing is going to happen on that campus” unless he and Mayor Mike Johnston — whom the protesters called a “fascist” last week — decide to do something.

Pro-Palestinian activists have walked out of classes, as protest actions began to spread across universities in the state, albeit more muted than the violent clashes in California and elsewhere in the country.

At the Auraria Campus in Denver, the scene of the first protest action at a university in Colorado following the demonstrations at Columbia University, officials offered a deal to the activists to take down the encampment in exchange for a $15,000 donation to Gaza. Organizers promptly rejected the offer.

The protesters are demanding that the University of Colorado Denver divest from corporations that operate in Israel. In addition to divestment, they asked for an end to University of Colorado’s study abroad programs to Israel and to refuse grants or funding from corporations that contract with the U.S. military.

Michelle Marks, chancellor of the University of Colorado Denver, said the demands largely “sits outside of her purview, as many fall under the CU Board of Regents and President.”

The university also said it does not have any study-abroad programs in Israel. 

Jennifer Campbell-Hicks of 9NEWS, and Denver Gazette reporter Noah Festenstein contributed to this report. Get more on the Auraria Campus protests from our news partners at 9NEWS.