Krasny Vows To Halt Violence

Chief Krasny and his advisers, waiting in pólice headquarters for reports on the maren, received a brief, crisp message from Platoon Lt. Marvin Dann, heading an "observation" team in the S. University Ave. area. "No one is going to take over this city by violence. These are not playful groups of innocent college students. They're anarchists out to destroy this society. We intend to stop them." Ann Arbor Pólice Chief Walter E. Krasny used these words this morning in the wake of a brief but furious battle last night between pólice from three agencies and a crowd of more than 2,000 persons outside City Hall. When the melee ended, five University students had been arrested; a dozen persons, including five policemen, had been injured, and the 300 block of E. Huron was littered with broken b o 1 1 1 e s , bricks and rocks. The fight was the most violent police-demonstrator confrontation here since the near-riots on S. University Ave. last June. Last night's disorder occurred less than 10 hours after Ann Arbor pólice had arrested 13 youths in a series of street fights on E. University near the West Engineering building. Those arrests carne after pólice had ousted 100 demontrators who had blockaded a hallway of the West Engineering building where a General Electric Co. recruiter was conducting job interviews. Chief Krasny identified leaders of the crowd yesterday noon and last night as members ■ of Students for a Democratie Society. After the E. University arrests yesterday noon, Chief Krasny and Sheriff Douglas J. Harvey began calling in all offduty officers from their departments in preparation for further trouble. Staff Sgt. Cari Freeborn, commander of the Michigan State Pólice post at Ypsilanti, and Capt. Walter Stevens, Second District der for the State Pólice, were contacted and obtained permission from East Lansing headquarters to bring in troopers from posts throughout Southeastern Michigan. As the afternoon wore on, reports from the Pólice Departm e n t ' s Intelligence División poured into Krasny's office. They indicated a major movement of demonstrators who had violence as an objective was scheduled for Wednesday night. During the afternoon, Chiei Krasny dispatched carloads oi riot-equipped patrolmen to both H u r o n and Pioneer High Schools after intelligence reports indicated the student radicáis involved in the Engineering Building fights intended to disrupt classes at the schools. Ten college - age y o u t h s invaded Huron High School, urged students in three classes to join campus demonstrations last night and then left. Six demonstrators were r e f u s e d admittance to Pioneer High School and later distributed pamphlets outside the building. By 8 p.m., Chief Krasny and Sheriff Harvey had 150 riote q u i p p e d pólice cruising through campus streets or staked out around City Hall, the County Building and the County Jail. Sgt. Preeborn and Capt. Stevens at that time were conierring with State Pólice Intellig e n c e División officers as troopers from a dozen posts were reporting in at the Ann Arbor Pólice Department. A crowd, first estimated at 500, then 800 and finally over 1,000, gathered on the University's Diagonal and listened to speakers talk about the conviction of five of the "Chicago 7," the Vietnam War, campus recruiting and the arrest of the 13 persons earlier in the day. By 8:30, the speeches complëted, the crowd began a march from the Diagonal to the University Hospital área and up Observatory St. The move, apparently calculated to piek up additional marchers, swung past the Ann Arbor Bank's branch at N. Forest and E. Ann Sts. where several windows were broken. Carloads of city pólice and s h e r i f f ' s deputies cruised around the fringes of the crowd but under orders from Deputy Pólice Chief Harold E. Olson, field commander of all pólice forces, and Capt. Howard A. Zeek did not attempt to halt the marchers. Sheriff Harvey and his undersheriff, Harold E. Owings Jr., made a swing through the University Hospital área to check the progress of the march. In a front rank of the crowd were two undercover Ann Arbor patrolmen, dressed in dungarees and work jackets and wearing student radical pins. Those officers, assigned to what Chief Krasny called "extremely hazardous duty", walked the entire route with the crowd, staying close behind two youths who broke windows in a bank building during the march. When pólice eventually charged the crowd at City Hall, the undercover officers seized the two rock-throwers and arrested them. The crowd picked up curiosityseekers as well as supporters as it moved past dormitories on Observatory and back onto S. University. The crowd exceeded 2,000 as it moved down the center of S. University about 9:30 D.m. "They're tearing up South U," Dann radioed in. He was referring to the smashing of windows in four stores and demolition of virtually every window in the Ann Arbor Bank branch at 1100 S. University. The message from Lt. Dann was the signal for Chief Krasny to issue the final order which set the stage for the confrontation at City Hall. He messaged Deputy Chief Olson, cruising past S. University, to pull his observers out of the area and return to pólice headquarters. But before the last team sped from the crowd, a rear window of a scout car was smashed with a brick and a group of demonstrators attempted to tip another pólice car over. Shortly af ter 9:30 the crowd had reached Packard and S. División and was streaming up S. División. The crowd surged f o r w a r d , shouting, shoving, threatening. W h e n the demonstrators reached S. División and E. Liberty, two blocks from City Hall, they paused briefly while rocks went sailing through six windows at the Ann Arbor Federal Savings and Loan Association, 401 E. Liberty. Then the crowd continued north on S. División, surging past the east side of the Ann Arbor News building. As the mob passed, more rocks were thrown and Stanley White, building superintendent of the News building, said later damage from cracked and broken windows is expected to reach" $500. By the time the crowd spilled around the S. División corner i onto E. Huron, the pólice were ready. Advance members of the 1 crowd ran up to a wall near I City Hall, spotted the I bied pólice in the driveway I ow and then ran back to the I approaching crowd. Seconds I later, the surging crowd was I abreast of the pólice lined up in I the City Hall driveway. Shouts I and obscenities could be heard I from the street and suddenly a I bottle arched its way from H I crowd loward the gathered I pólice. It smashed against the I windshield of a parked pólice I car. -I Portrait of 2 demonstra tors: Idealistic, biased, bewildered - Page 25. More demonstration pictures - Page 25.