After law enforcement deployed chemical ammunition, including pepper spray, and arrested a Northwestern student at a Saturday protest, local activist organization Evanston Fight for Black Lives issued a statement Monday condemning police violence and the tactics used by Evanston Police Department and Illinois crowd control.

The group, which said it has not yet been in contact with organizers from NU Community Not Cops, shares a similar goal: police abolition. Organizers from EFBL wrote in the release that the violence enacted by law enforcement and the actions of protesters were held to “different standards.”

“When EPD and NUPD used violence against protesters last night, they upheld the systems that Northwestern Community Not Cops sought to abolish — the marginalization of Black Evanston residents by the policing system,” organizers wrote. “The resistance of protesters at the march was in response to centuries of anti-Black violence. When communities are oppressed by state violence, the natural impulse is to resist.”

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