Authorities closed a pro-Palestinian student camp at the University of California, Los Angeles earlier this week amid rising tensions. Los Angeles Times It has been reported.
Officers from the LAPD, California Highway Patrol and several California State Police departments descended on campus in riot gear Monday afternoon, but did not use weapons to remove protesters and did not make any arrests, university spokesman Erik Frost Hollins said. times.
Other nearby universities, including the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles, acted relatively quickly to close student camps this spring. But at Cal State LA, it lasted about 50 days.
The peaceful relationship between protesters and university officials changed last week. Dozens of protesters barricaded themselves inside the student services building for more than nine hours, trapping some administrators.
“For the safety of the entire campus community, the only acceptable option was to dismantle and disperse the encampment. We will not negotiate with those who use destruction and intimidation to achieve their goals,” said Cal State LA President Berencea Johnson Eanes. “It is not lost on me that public servants carrying out their public duties at a public university in one of the most under-resourced communities in the region have been victimized by those who claim to be protesting injustice.”
When police arrived on Monday, they found about 10 protesters still at the encampment, all of whom left voluntarily after officials gave them orders to disperse. Soon after, forklifts removed graffiti-covered wooden barricades and empty tents, dumping them in the trash.
Elsewhere in the state, protests ended Wednesday at the University of California, Davis, but the decision was entirely student-led. They announced that they would end the protests even though all their demands were not met.