Early on Thursday morning, the Los Angeles Police Department cracked down on pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the University of California, Los Angeles, violently dismantling the encampment set up last week.
The Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, reports that hundreds of police officers had arrived on campus, where thousands of demonstrators were gathered in support of Palestine and to call for the school’s divestment from Israel. Police moved in on the encampment around 1:20 a.m. after warning the crowd to disperse. Videos show LAPD officers shooting nonlethal munitions at students at close range:
In the early moments of the standoff, demonstrators were briefly able to dispel some of the officers by surrounding them and forcing them to retreat:
As the night wore on, officers with the LAPD and the California Highway Patrol broke through the barriers to the encampment, reportedly using flashbang grenades and tear gas on protesters. By 5 a.m., the encampment was mostly cleared. The Daily Bruin reports that students had been detained and that officers threatened to arrest the student reporters still on campus early in the morning.
The crackdown came one night after the Los Angeles Police Department was notably absent as counterprotesters attacked the UCLA encampment. On Tuesday night, KABC Los Angeles reports that a large number of counterprotesters arrived on campus around 11 p.m. and began attacking students. Videos showed that counterprotesters shot fireworks into the camp where students have been set up since last week:
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, officers began to step in to stop the violent skirmishes around 1:30 a.m. — roughly two and a half hours after the conflict began. By morning, at least one person had been driven away in an ambulance, per CBS, though the full number of injuries and arrests remain unclear. UCLA announced that all classes will be canceled for Wednesday.
Police officials and college administrations throughout the country have responded more forcefully this week to student encampments. At City College in Manhattan, police stated that 173 people were arrested in the crackdown on Tuesday night, though it is not clear how many of those were students, as it is an open campus. Thirty-one students were arrested at California State Polytechnic University on Tuesday after demonstrators took over two administrative buildings last week. Early on Wednesday morning, police with riot shields broke up the encampment at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. And at Dartmouth College early on Thursday morning, police threw a 65-year-old history professor, Annelise Orleck, on the ground. Orleck says she is now banned from campus.
