Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters remained behind barricades on the UCLA campus early Thursday morning, despite police orders to leave, as officers prepared to move into their fortified camp that was surrounded by an even larger crowd, including gun-locking supporters and onlookers.
Videos began to emerge on social media during the night of the police in the camp:
Later, this same group, which calls itself People's Council – Los Angeles, told X that the police “were on retreat!!! LAPD is out! Students held the line!… The world whole is watching and the students evicted the cops!”
Numerous posts on X from reporters at the scene also said the police had withdrawn.
Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia told X that, “We are at UCLA. There is a heavy police presence from multiple law enforcement agencies after mobs outside attacked peaceful student protesters last night with no one to protect them. Students are now confronting the police . We urge UCLA and city leaders to protect students, do no more harm.”
But it seems that things took another turn:
A large number of policemen started arriving late Wednesday afternoon, and empty buses were parked near the University of California, Los Angeles to take away unruly protesters. The tense clash came a night after counter-protester-instigated violence erupted at the same venue.
ETIENNE LAURENT / AFP via Getty Images
A small town emerged within the barricaded camp, filled with hundreds of people and tents on the campus quad. Some protesters said Muslim prayers as the sun set over the campus, while others chanted “we won't get away” or handed out surgical goggles and masks. They wore helmets and bandanas and discussed the best ways to handle pepper spray or tear gas while someone sang into a megaphone.
A few made homemade shields out of plywood in case they clashed with police forming skirmish lines elsewhere on campus. “For rubber bullets, who wants a shield?” shouted a protester.
Meanwhile, a large crowd of students, alumni and neighbors gathered on the campus steps outside the tents, sitting as they listened to and applauded various speakers and joined in pro-Palestinian chants. A group of students holding signs and T-shirts in support of Israel and the Jewish people demonstrated nearby.
The crowd continued to grow as the night wore on as more and more officers poured into the campus.
The presence of law enforcement and the continued warnings contrasted with the scene that unfolded the night before, when counter-protesters attacked the pro-Palestinian camp, throwing traffic cones, throwing pepper spray and tearing down barriers. Fighting continued for several hours before police intervened, although no arrests were made. At least 15 protesters were injured, and the authorities' lukewarm response drew criticism from political leaders as well as Muslim students and advocacy groups.
Ray Wiliani, who lives nearby, said he came to UCLA Wednesday evening to support the pro-Palestinian protesters.
“We have to take a stand for this,” he said. “Enough is enough.”
Officials react
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement that “a group of instigators” carried out the previous night's attack, but did not provide details about the crowd or why the administration and school police they didn't act before.
“However one feels about the camp, this attack on our students, faculty and community members was totally unacceptable,” he said. “It has shaken our campus to the core.”
Block promised a review of the night's events after California Gov. Gavin Newsom denounced the delays.
The head of the University of California system, Michael Drake, ordered an “independent review of the university's planning, its actions and the response of law enforcement.”
“The community needs to feel that the police are protecting them, not allowing others to harm them,” said Rebecca Husaini, chief of staff at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, at a news conference on the Los Angeles campus on Wednesday. late, where some Muslim students. detail the night's events.
Speakers questioned the university's account that 15 people were injured and one hospitalized, saying the number of people taken to hospital was higher. One student described needing to go to hospital after being hit in the head by an object wielded by counter-protesters.
Several students who spoke during the press conference said they had to depend on each other, not the police, for support when they were attacked, and that many in the pro-Palestinian camp remained peaceful and did not leave. relate to the counter-demonstrators. UCLA canceled classes Wednesday.
The general picture
Tent camps of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support them the war in Gaza they have spread across campuses across the country in a student movement unlike any other this century. Subsequent police crackdowns echoed decades-old actions against a much larger protest movement protesting the Vietnam War.
An Associated Press count counted at least 38 times since April 18 that arrests were made at campus protests across the United States. More than 1,600 people have been arrested in 30 schools.
In rare cases, university officials and protest leaders reached agreements to curtail the disruption of campus life and upcoming graduation ceremonies.
At Brown University in Rhode Island, administrators agreed to consider a vote to divest from Israel in October — apparently the first American university to accept such a demand.
All of this is unfolding in an election year in the US, raising questions about whether young voters, who are critical to Democrats, will support President Biden's re-election effort, given his staunch support for Israel.
National campus demonstrations began in Columbia on April 17 to protest Israel's offensive in Gaza, after Hamas launched a deadly attack in southern Israel on October 7. The militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took approximately 250 hostages. According to the Ministry of Health, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, vowing to end Hamas.
Israel and its supporters have labeled the university protests anti-Semitic, while Israel's critics say it uses such accusations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making anti-Semitic comments or threatening violence, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest the war.
Other demonstrations
The chaotic scenes at UCLA came just hours later New York police stormed a building occupied by anti-war protesters at Columbia University Tuesday night, breaking up a demonstration that had brought the school to a standstill.
Police in New Hampshire made arrests and pulled down tents at Dartmouth College, and Oregon officers entered the campus of Portland State University as school officials tried to end the library occupation which started on Monday.
In Madison, Wis., a scrum broke out early Wednesday after police with shields removed all but one of the tents and pushed back the protesters. Four officers were injured, including a state trooper who was hit in the head with a skateboard, authorities said. Four were charged with assault against law enforcement.
Protest camps elsewhere were cleared by police, resulting in arrests, or voluntarily closed at schools across the US, including The City College of New York, Fordham University in New York, Portland State in Oregon , Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona and Tulane University in New Orleans.
