Dozens of officers in riot gear from multiple agencies descended on a pro-Palestinian camp at Cal State LA on Monday afternoon to dismantle the camp and force protesters to leave after tensions escalated last week.
Around 1:20 p.m., police issued a dispersal order in English and Spanish, and the remaining protesters in the camp, a group of about 10 people, left voluntarily, university spokesman Erik Frost Hollins said.
It was the last major pro-Palestinian protest camp at a Los Angeles university.
Officers, who included the Los Angeles Police Department, the California Highway Patrol and several Cal State campus police departments, did not use weapons to remove protesters and made no arrests, Hollins said. Campus security and police blocked all entrances to the campus, although the exits were open and the campus was accessible on foot.
Using forklifts and large trash containers, crews removed the painted and graffitied wooden boards surrounding the camp and hauled them away. Many were painted in the red, green, white and black colors of the Palestinian flag and had phrases such as “Gaza Solidarity Camp” and “Google LASD bands.”
Students launched the camp on May 1 to demand that Cal State LA and the California State University system disclose their investments, “dive off companies that financially and materially support genocide, defend the people's rights to resistance and return.” Palestinian, and declare that the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine are illegal under international law,” according to a statement from Students for Justice in Palestine at Cal State LA.
Hollins said that since the camp opened, Cal State LA President Berenecea Johnson Eanes has visited twice and had several conversations with protesters.
While other universities, including USC and UCLA, acted relatively quickly to close pro-Palestinian camps during the spring, the one at Cal State LA was tolerated for many weeks. For the most part, it has not been a site of heated controversies or confrontations involving students, campus officials or police.
But the nature of the relationship between the university and protesters changed on Wednesday, Hollins said, when several dozen protesters barricaded themselves inside the student services building, with some administrators inside, for more than nine hours. The group Students for Justice in Palestine said administrators were free to leave, with escorts, whenever they wished. The group said it communicated that message directly and through Instagram. About 60 employees were in the building for about two hours before leaving. About a dozen, including Eanes and Hollins, stayed voluntarily.
Hollins said there was no specific event on Monday that prompted the university to call police, but he said officials had been talking about dismantling the encampment since the building's occupation.
On Monday afternoon, Eanes said in a campus-wide email that “those associated with the camp engaged in illegal acts that put staff and students at risk” during the building occupation, “including assaults, vandalism, destruction of property and looting.”
“The only acceptable option for the safety of the entire university community was for the camp to disband and disperse. We will not negotiate with those who would use destruction and intimidation to achieve their goals,” he wrote. “It is not lost on me that public employees fulfilling a public mission at a public university in one of the least resourced communities in the region have been victims of those who claim to protest injustice.”
Eanes said the campus, where classes have been virtual since the middle of last week, would continue virtually on Tuesday. The university is in its summer session, which ends on August 10.
On Monday, Cal State LA's Palestine Justice College chapter said it had been concerned for weeks that the peaceful camp could be compromised as negotiations stalled and frustrations mounted.
“While the June 12 protest produced a turning point for the camp, we propose that timely, good faith negotiations with students over their demands for divestment are the best path toward a resolution,” the group said in a letter published on Instagram. “We also recommend that they communicate more clearly with camp students about the timeline and process for removal, rather than resorting to a potential unannounced raid that is likely to result in trauma, harm and violence as has occurred at other universities.”
An Instagram post by Students for Justice in Palestine at Cal State LA showed video of what appeared to be activists speaking to police in riot gear who were gathered outside the encampment's barricades. “We have to do what they say,” says a voice from the camp in the background. “We can leave?” an activist tells the police as he watches the authorities. “Yeah!” several officers say in unison. “I want you to leave,” an officer says. “I want less of you there.”
The camp was nearly dismantled by 5:30 p.m. Its removal revealed graffiti covering the wall beneath the “Olympic Fantasy” tile mural near the heart of campus, with slogans such as “Gaza Lives” and “Stop Funding Genocide.”
The student services building, the site of last week's occupation, remained closed with police tape. Patio tables and chairs were overturned and graffiti remained on the ground-level windows.
A campus security worker who is not authorized to speak to the media said officials would clean the building area after the camp materials were completely removed. They said they weren't sure if that would happen Monday.
Onlookers, including students and neighborhood residents, expressed surprise at the camp's removal and police presence Monday.
“I didn't agree with what the camp represented, but I passed it many times,” said James Wheeler, who walked to the camp area, cordoned off with yellow police tape, as a helicopter hovered overhead.
“They were mostly peaceful students,” Wheeler said, “and their protest was nothing like the conflict or controversy you've seen at other universities, other than the one time they went to occupy the building.”
A student who said she knew the camp members said the police response was “very exaggerated” considering that there were about 10 activists who voluntarily left the scene. “They sent all these police cars, these riot police, they blocked the streets, all for nothing. It’s out of control,” said the student, who did not want to give her name.
In his letter Monday, Eanes said the university “would have to face the consequences of sheltering in place.” [the student services building]anger at the destruction of the student spaces they worked so hard to create and the pain of feeling less safe on a campus we all cherish.”
Hollins said that during the sit-in, one employee “had something thrown at his head,” while another was pushed toward the door and then pushed away as protesters forced their way into the building.
Protesters heavily vandalized the building, Hollins said, and the university is still investigating to determine if there should be any arrests. Protesters covered their faces and took other steps to conceal their identities, complicating the investigation, they said.
Activists defended their actions.
“The defense of the sit-in and the Solidarity Camp will continue despite heavy police pressure from the University Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department until CSULA ends its financial support and material to genocide,” the group said. he said in a statement last week.
Times staff writer Angie Orellana Hernández contributed to this report.
