Tag: Homes

  • Searches Were About Vandalism of Michigan Leaders’ Homes

    Searches Were About Vandalism of Michigan Leaders’ Homes

    The Michigan attorney general’s office revealed Thursday that the police searches Wednesday in Ann Arbor, Canton and Ypsilanti were part of a yearlong investigation into “evidently coordinated” vandalism, including pro-Palestine graffiti and in some cases shattered glass at the homes of the University of Michigan’s president, provost, chief investment officer and one regent, Jordan Acker.

    In a news release, the office of Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said there were many “related criminal acts.” It listed 12 locations where incidents—spanning February 2024 to last month—are under investigation, including the four university leaders’ homes.

    “It is currently estimated that the total damage from these incidents is approximately $100,000,” the release said. “In all cases, the crimes were committed in the middle of the night and in one case upon a residence wherein children were sleeping and awoken. In multiple instances windows were smashed, and twice noxious chemical substances were propelled into homes. At every site, political slogans or messages were left behind.”

    No arrests have been made yet.

    Police—including local, state and the FBI—raided five homes connected to university pro-Palestinian activists Wednesday, according to Lavinia Dunagan, a Ph.D. student who is a co-chair of the university graduate student union’s communications committee. She said at least seven people, including at least one union member, were detained but not arrested. All are students, save for one employee of Michigan Medicine, she said.

    The union—the Graduate Employees’ Organization, or GEO—said in a news release Wednesday that “officers also confiscated personal belongings from multiple residences and at least two cars.”

    The state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a release Wednesday that “property damage at residences took place, and individuals were handcuffed without charges during the aggressive raids.”

    The attorney general’s office did say Thursday that “in one instance, an entryway was forcibly breached following more than an hour of police efforts to negotiate entry to satisfy the court-authorized search warrant.”

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  • FBI Raids Indiana U Cybersecurity Professor’s Homes

    FBI Raids Indiana U Cybersecurity Professor’s Homes

    Federal investigators spent hours last Friday raiding two homes belonging to a cybersecurity professor at Indiana University at Bloomington, multiple local news outlets reported.

    It’s unclear what investigators were looking for, but Chris Bavender, an FBI spokesperson, confirmed to The Herald-Times that the raid was “court authorized law enforcement activity,” and that the agency had “no further comment.”

    Xiaofeng Wang, a tenured computer science professor and director of IU’s Center for Security and Privacy in Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, has worked at the university for more than 20 years. But after numerous government agents began removing boxes from the Bloomington home Wang shares with his wife, Nianli Ma—who also worked for IU’s library as a systems analyst and programmer—neighbors told The Herald-Times they knew little about the couple, including their names. 

    Law enforcement also arrived Friday morning at a home belonging to the couple in Carmel, about an hour and 15 minutes north of Bloomington. A video taken by a neighbor and published by local NBC affiliate, WTHR, shows FBI agents shouting, “FBI, come out!” through a megaphone pointed toward the residence. 

    An unidentified woman then exits the home holding a phone, which agents confiscated before questioning her and later removing evidence from the home. The woman left the scene and returned hours later with her lawyer, who later told WTHR “they’re not sure yet what the investigation is about.”

    According to The Bloomingtonian, Wang was fired from IU in early March. Both his and Ma’s employee profiles have been scrubbed from the university’s websites.

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