"There was no violence from the protesters. The violence was from police only," said Sally Frank of the National Lawyers Guild, a human rights defense group. "Certainly, the first or second dispersal warning was muffled, but everyone got out of the street. By the time the dispersal order was audible, everyone was on the sidewalk, but police moved in.
"Some people were dispersing and were chased, and other people weren't given the opportunity and were grabbed within seconds."
A professor of law at Drake University, Frank said a legal observer with the guild was among those arrested. Legal observers are not affiliated with protest groups and are there to see whether people's First Amendment rights are being violated.