Protesters being detained on the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) on May 2, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
The police arrested pro-Palestinian protesters on faculty campuses throughout the U.S. in a single day, notably on the University of California, Los Angeles, the place chaotic scenes performed out early on Thursday as officers in riot gear surged towards a crowd of demonstrators and made arrests.
The police eliminated barricades and started dismantling demonstrators’ fortified encampment at UCLA after lots of of protesters defied orders to depart, a few of them forming human chains as police fired flash-bangs to interrupt up the crowds.
Numerous protesters have been arrested, their arms certain with zip ties.
The motion got here after officers spent hours threatening arrests over loudspeakers if folks didn’t disperse. A crowd of greater than 1,000 had gathered on campus, each inside a barricaded tent encampment and outdoors it, in assist. Protesters and the police shoved and scuffled.
Protesters chanted, “Where were you last night?” on the officers, in reference to Tuesday night time, when counterprotesters attacked the encampment and the UCLA administration and campus police took hours to reply.
Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to cease doing enterprise with Israel or firms they are saying assist the warfare in Gaza have unfold throughout campuses nationwide. The ensuing police crackdowns echoed actions a long time in the past towards a a lot bigger protest motion protesting the Vietnam War.
Yale University police arrested 4 individuals on Wednesday night time after round 200 demonstrators marched to the college president’s dwelling and to the campus police division.
In Oregon, the police have began working to clear demonstrators out of a library at Portland State University.
The protests at UCLA gave the impression to be getting essentially the most consideration. Iranian state tv carried stay pictures of the police motion, as did Qatar’s pan-Arab Al Jazeera satellite tv for pc community. Live pictures of Los Angeles additionally performed throughout Israeli tv networks, as nicely.