Disorder Injunction Too Late, Larcom Says

Attempts fhursday to end a student demonstration b y issuing an injunction have come under some pointed criticism, but City Administrator Guy C. Larcom Jr believes the plan would have worked - earlier. By the time the injunction was ready to be presented, it was about 10 p.m. This was long after the student "takeover" of the Literature, Science and the Arts Building had begun. Larcom says if the injunction could have been prepared and issued in the afternoon, the students may have left the building and ended any need for pólice action - action which eventually resulted i n the arrests of 108 persons. The possibility of issuing an injunction during a student disorder was discussed informally Thursday morning while Mayor Robert J. Harris was meeting with University officials concerning an agenda for an upcoming joint meeting between City Council members and U-M officials. Harris says this possibility had been discussed previously, and said it has been used successfully at Columbia University. "We feit it was a good route to go," Harris said. However, when the students sat in at the building Thursday afternoon the U-M's legal counsel Peter Forsythe was in Chelsea and not immediately available to work on the injunction. Harris said when he heard of the sit-in at about 5 p.m. he offered the University the use of the city attorney and bis staff. The mayor noted there was general agreement that should the injunction fail the pólice would have to enter the building and remove the students. "At no time was there any swaying from this decisión," he said. He said the only question was when there would be sufficient numbers of pólice on hand to make the arrests. It was agreed among city and University officials that the arrests should come later in the morning in hopes that the crowd outside the building would thin out. Meanwhile, some students play to boycott classes Monday in protest of the arrests of Friday morning and also to press their demands for a student bookstore. U-M President Robben Fleming met informally with about 75 students yesterday afternoon in front of the Administration Building, fielding questions concerning the student sit-in and arrests. Many of the questions and comments of the students related to Sheriff Douglas J. Harvey. One student said, "You have allowed Sheriff Harvey in, with his gestapo tactics. . ." Fleming replied, "As long as this is Sheriff Harvey's jurisdiction, he can come in whether we like it or not." Asked about the issuance of the injunction, Fleming said if everyone had left the building after the court order was read there would have been no arrests. "That's'why we tried it. If it had been obeyed, there would have been no pólice last night." The U-M president said, "Taking a building is simply not a tolerable way to settle grievances in a civilized society. If instead the students had asked to try to settle disputes and not give ultimatums, then things might have been different. Who can talk after a building, is taken over, that just sets a precedent." The decisión to cali pólice in early yesterday morning was an "agonizing" one, Fleming told the students in his twohour debate with them yesterday. "That decisión may destroy me but it doesn't bother me," Fleming said. "This may erode student confidence in me. Maybe somebody else could do a better job. If it means I have to go, that's all right." The statement by the U-M president was the first in which he indicated student unrest might cost him his job. During yesterday's talk between Flemiing and the students Marty McLaughlin, 19, president of the University's Student Government Council and one of the 108 arrested yesterday morning, seized a microphone Fleming had been holding and shouted: "Then we have no alternative but to strike." The crowd then began to chant: ''Strike! Strike! Strike!" and with raised fists maarched through the front door and out the back of the Administration Building. McLaughlin and Peter Denton, leader of the students rent strike, were also leaders in Thursday night's take-over of the Literature Science and the Arts building. Roger Keats, head of the Student Council's bookstore committee, yesterday a,ccused Dentón of using the booksotre issue "to get a confrontation. Keats uregd students to support the regents in the dispute. "You can't start a bookstore on daydreams and talk. You've got to have money," Keats said. He said it would cost $200,000 to $400,000 to launch a bookstore and students "can't get credit" for that amount. The regents have voted to put j up $200,000 and to assess students up to $5 each to raise another $200,000 if students vote approval for such a move in a referendum. city pólice station was cleared and typing tables and file cabinets were set up. Women clerks were called in from their homes and officials of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority were recruited to provide a halfdozen buses for the transportation of pólice and prisoners. By 2:15 a.m., a string of 30 State Pólice cruisers headed east on E. Huron St. and then south on S. Fifth Ave. to the E. Washington St. carport for 'orage. Sheriff Harvey, informed of e decisión to make arrests, called his - dismissed force 'Á prepared to join the operain. Word of the mobilization of ilice forces was relayed to the owd waiting outside and side the building by motorcyists who zipped past pólice ;adquarters and around the unty Jail. "I just saw more state pólice cars than I've ever seen in my life," one breathless cyclist gasped to the protesters in front of the building. But when 3 a.m. came and went and pólice did not arrive the crowd became restless. A spirited debate went on at the rear of the building between those inside and those waiting outside. Some of the crowd wanted the occupiers to come out and avoid arrest while others urged them to remain. A vote of those inside favored remaining, "100 to 3", one speaker bellowed. A slight sprinkle began to fall shortly before 3:30 a.m. and one group in front of the building built a fire to ward off the chili of the dawn air. Almost exactly at 3:30 á rolling shout went up from the rear of the building and scores of spectators at the front of the structure sprinted .to the scène of action. There on E. Jefferson St. they found Ann Arbor city buses pulling up and squads of riot-equipped pólice wearing "flak vests" and face shields leaving the vehicles. ' ' P i g s ! Pigs!" came the screams. "Facists! Hitlers!" were the shouts. When Deputy Chief Olson gave the order to advance, a final shout of anger went up from the crowd but it melted away as the crowd broke before the advancing line. As the prisoners were being removed from the building, State Pólice maintained a tight cordon around the area. The arrested youths were marched down E. Jefferson Ave. between the two lines of tr'oopers and when they reached the waiting city buses on Thompson St. were photographed with the arresting officers and b o o k e d by women clerks wearing riot helmets. Seven persons werey injured, pólice said, but they declined to release ñames. They said none of the seven was arrested. Sgt. Charles Clark of the State Pólice post at Lapeer was the only pólice casualty- a broken blood vessel in his wrist caused by a thrown bottle. When the chilling September dawn broke over S. State and E. Jefferson St. this morning the pólice and their prisoners were gone. Scraps of paper reading "Protest" and "Strike" strewn along the rear entrance of the building and blown by the early morning wind showed where the latest "take-over" on the University of Michigan campus had ended. (Other stories and pictures on Page 13.)