1/
"Members of the Department of History at UCLA are horrified that the university administration has continued to disregard our students’ safety and their right to express their views. The university went from permitting a violent mob to attack our students (on 4/30 to 5/1) to authorizing law enforcement to brutalize the same students (on 5/2)."
New joint statement by members of #UCLA’s history department, compiled from testimony of faculty present at encampment during various periods and in response to last night’s police violence against students. We make 6 explicit calls of the university administration. Read at link below.
A girl pours water next to a tent sprayed painted with a message thanking pro-Palestine Columbia University students in Rafah, southern Gaza, on May 2 [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]
If all it takes to get the government and others to declare protests not peaceful and unacceptable is for some right-wingers to show up and beat up, or even just try to beat up, some of the protestors...
Expect right-wingers to show up at A LOT of protests and beat up A LOT of people.
(Because they don't seem to get stopped by law enforcement, and even when they shoot and kill people they basically get away with it. See also attempts to basically make it okay to ram protestors with cars.) #StudentProtests#UCLA
"“People Could Have Died”: Police Raid UCLA Gaza Protest, Waited as Pro-Israel Mob Attacked Encampment"
"Police in riot gear dismantled a pro-Palestinian encampment using flashbang grenades, rubber bullets & tear gas, & arresting dozens of students.
"The raid came just over a day after pro-Israel counterprotesters armed with sticks, metal rods & fireworks attacked students" while police watched on.
Spoke to @CNN this morning about the violent dismantlement of the Palestine Solidarity Encampment at #UCLA. The horrific escalation by Gene Block’s administration is sacrificing our student safety and academic community for political clout.
The encampment exemplified democracy, and its destruction only furthers the decay of what little civil society we have left.
Not one arrest was made at #UCLA of the Zionist frat boys who were let in by private security and ignored by #LAPD while they hospitalized 22 students. It looked like a mob of brown shirts. Biden is setting the stage for project 2025 and he is either too stupid or too arrogant to realize it. And #Democrats, do not @ me with “vote blue no matter who” you sound insane. #uspol
They set off so many flash-bangs on #UCLA students last night it truly sounded like a war zone. They gassed protestors and shot them at point-blank range with rubber bullets. A little Tiananmen Square every evening on every campus. What a grotesque display of police abuse and a trampling of fundamental freedoms.
Okay, well, seriously don't give a dollar to #JerrySeinfeld and don't watch his upcoming movie. His wife is sending money to "counter-protestors" to do the same good work as the mob at #UCLA.
This is a garbage headline that is fractally wrong and also why biden has lost 20% margin in youth vote in a year. The only violence at the #UCLA encampment was committed AGAINST them by the police and the fascist mobs the police gave carte blanche to. The encampment was NOT chaotic - it was highly orderly, well disciplined, and a place of education and solidarity. The encampment is a protest AGAINST violence sanctioned by the Biden administration.
"Police removed barricades and began dismantling pro-Palestinian demonstrators’ fortified encampment early Thursday at the University of California, Los Angeles, after hundreds of protesters defied orders to leave, some of them forming human chains as police fired flash-bangs to break up the crowds. Some people were detained, their hands bound with zip ties."
What are the odds police are going to protect student protestors from more violent attacks by “counter-protestors” instead of using last night’s violent attacks on protestors at UCLA to justify violent police intervention against protestors in order to “prevent more violence”?
Oh look, just as predicted, today the #UCLA president’s statement says that UCLA had to send in the police last night to arrest the student protestors who had been violently attacked the night before with no response by police to protect them because the existence of the protest made people—wait for it—unsafe. #USpol
UCLA: Police clear out pro-Palestinian encampment and detain protesters (www.bbc.com)
Officers in riot gear tore down makeshift barriers and set off flash bangs as they dismantled the site.