UAPD has no plans to boot protesters

But University of Arizona Police Department officials say physical force by their officers is unlikely.

"I don't believe that anybody wants to get the police involved," said UAPD Chief Harry Hueston II. "I don't believe that using police to negotiate this crisis is a solution."

UA officials said the decision to expel the activists ultimately lies with Likins, who has said he intends to let SAS members remain in his office.

Supporters and members of the University of Arizona's Students Against Sweatshops chapter invaded the Administration Building Wednesday and occupied the president's seventh-floor office. The activists have refused to leave until Likins signs a list of their demands.

"I'm not going to evict them," Likins said. "So long as they behave as they are currently behaving, they can stay until Christmas."

However, on Friday afternoon, the demonstrators left Likins' office and moved their rally downstairs in hopes of gathering more attention for their cause.

A group of about 12 SAS members who had been beating pots, banging drums, clashing cymbals and shouting into a megaphone moved their racket from Likins' office to the second-floor Bursar's office at about 4 p.m., prompting workers to call UAPD.

"They came down and people couldn't conduct their business," Hueston said. "The clerks said they couldn't help the students."

But the protesters left as soon as they realized police had been called.

SAS member Arne Ekstrom said the Bursar's office invasion could have helped spread the activists' message.

"We want to make sure that the community is educated about this stuff," Ekstrom said.

Hueston said the protesters left the Bursar's office before he arrived, adding that the situation did not justify arresting the activists.

"We have to look at where it occurred, the group of people where it occurred would have to leave that area," he said, adding that SAS members in the president's office are there by invitation.

University police officers have been rotating eight-hour shifts with the demonstrators since Wednesday night, Hueston said. The officers are stationed in the Administration Building to handle first aid and safety concerns.

"You're basically just up there," he said, adding that the officers are volunteering and receiving overtime pay. "You do crossword puzzles or whatever the case may be."

Two UAPD officers, rotating between the office and the building's front entrance, spent each night and this weekend with the SAS members.

"The duty is to ensure that the building has some degree of security," Hueston said. "The building is not designed as a place to live and that is exactly what's going on."

Hueston, who referred to the activists' behavior as "very good," said the demonstrators would be removed if they interfere "with the peaceful conduct of an educational institution."

But police do not plan on making arrests.

"I think there's progress being made and I don't want the police to interfere in that," Hueston said. "Our point is we're going to stand by."

Hueston said the UA has had "tons of sit-ins," and that activists have been removed by police in the past.

Abel Duffy, a 23-year-old student who was protesting the UA's plan to place telescopes on Mount Graham, was arrested in 1994 for criminal trespassing after he camped out on the Memorial Student Union's clock tower for six days.

"The reactions and what has happened in the past...are based on the views of the president at that time," Hueston said.