Two people were arrested during an anti-abortion protest inside the University of Florida’s Turlington Plaza on Friday afternoon that turned violent.
Brian Taylor, president of the UF Graduates Assistants United Union, and student Ian Dinkla were taken into custody by campus police and charged with multiple felonies, court records show.
Taylor, 26, and Dinkla, 21, were protesting large graphic images of aborted fetuses displayed by travel organization Created Equal.
Police say Dinkla stole one of the signs worth $120. The report states that when an officer attempted to arrest Dinkla, he pushed and pulled the officer. Taylor struck an officer in the back of the head with a bullhorn for trying to arrest Dinkla. An arrest report states that Taylor also punched a plainclothes officer in the face.
A video of the event The two wrestle with the police after law enforcement is called in to take Dinkla’s signature.
Dinkla is charged with robbery and resisting an officer with violence, both felonies, while Taylor faces felony charges of aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting an officer with violence and without violence. resists arrest.
No bond has been set as of Friday evening.
anti abortion displays
The signs being displayed in UF, while controversial, are not new.
The group Created Equal regularly spends time visiting Florida campuses to share its message. The anti-abortion group was at UF earlier in the week, as well as the University of Central Florida and the University of South Florida. The self-described “Justice Ride” tour, which dates back to 2011 for the first time, is inspired by the Civil Rights-era Freedom Rides and argues that unborn fetuses are protected by the 14th Amendment – comparing abortion to historical tragedies, such as the Holocaust.
Two counter-protest groups were stationed in the plaza to draw attention away from the images, seemingly from Created Equals.
Planned Parenthood’s Generation Action drew its own crowd of students and held up pink ‘Banned Our Bodies’ signs. Other students held up signs demanding free abortion for all and were among about two dozen holding their own rally for bodily autonomy.
Olivia Packham, a member of the Generation action group, said the controversial demonstrations are more dangerous than ever for women, who are fighting against Roe v. Wade and others are considering passage of anti-abortion laws, including Florida’s recently proposed six-week abortion ban.
“Florida was a safe destination,” the 19-year-old health sciences major said. “Now[the protections]are being eroded so that the entire South doesn’t have a safe place to have an abortion.
“We’ve had experiences where students have had panic attacks in response to these photos, just because of how disturbing they are. But in the end, we’re getting far more support and feedback from the student union than they did. “
Seth Dreyer, vice president of Created Equal, said the graphic images represent the realities of abortion.
“You can’t make abortion beautiful,” he said. “It’s graphic because abortion is graphic.”
Students on the university’s unofficial sub-reddit channel, r/uflVulnerable students were warned to avoid the area on Wednesday and Friday.
“Trigger warning for anyone driving through Turlington in the next hour,” one user wrote in a post with more than 150 upvotes. “You shouldn’t force anyone to see those images, real or fake, especially people who are trying to go to class.”
Another popular post celebrated a student called “our hero” who ran away with a demonstration on Wednesday. Some students knocked over the display as they walked through the plaza on Friday.
Delaney Daum, a 19-year-old UF nursing nurse, sat in the plaza near a demonstration promoting the group Gator Christian Life. Although unaffiliated with Created Equal, she stated that she supports the group’s work.
“It’s controversial, but it’s an effective way of doing it,” Daum said. “It can be emotional to see some of the pictures shown, but I think it’s important that people know what’s going on when they have an abortion.”
Maria Peralta, a 20-year-old UF finance junior who held up a Planned Parenthood sign in the plaza, said she believes the demonstration is a largely ineffective way to achieve the group’s goals.
“Those photos are very unnecessary, people are just trying to get into orbit,” Peralta said. “I don’t think it looks real.”
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Equal Meet Created by Planned Parenthood at Graphic Images in UF