The University of California in Los Angeles was reeling on Wednesday following a late-night violent attack by counter-demonstrators on a pro-Palestinian protest encampment, and a slow response from law enforcement to some of the worst violence seen since students across the US intensified their protests in support of Gaza.
As the Los Angeles mayor called the violence “abhorrent” and California’s governor said he was monitoring the situation, UCLA announced it was cancelling all classes on Wednesday “due to the distress caused by the violence that took place on Royce Quad late last night”. The school said that law enforcement was “stationed throughout campus to help promote safety”.
On campus Wednesday morning, a helicopter hovered overhead while groups of security guards and law enforcement stood around a sectioned off area of campus filled with tents. Students slowed as they passed the barricades, taking in the scene.
“I think all of us are in a state of shock,” said Noah, a UCLA law student who only felt comfortable using their first name.
The chaos at UCLA started before midnight, when a masked group descended on an encampment that pro-Palestinian protesters had erected on the campus. Aerial footage showed people wielding sticks or poles to attack wooden boards that had been put up as a makeshift barricade to protect the encampment , some holding placards or umbrellas. At least one firework was thrown into the camp.
Fights between both groups ensued, with people grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another. People threw chairs and other objects and at one point a group piled on a person on the ground, kicking and beating them with sticks until others pulled them out of the scrum.
The LA Times reported that a group of security guards could be seen observing the clashes, but that they did not intervene. The UCLA campus police (UCPD) showed up shortly after 11pm to break up the conflict, but left within minutes, the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, reported.
The UCPD chief, John Thomas, told the student newspaper that officers had come under attack while trying to help an injured person, so they left. Some of the security guards hired by the university also retreated and hid inside a building last night as counter-protesters attacked, the Daily Bruin reported.
Teresa Wanatabe, a higher education reporter for the Los Angeles Times, tweeted just before 1am that she was receiving texts from “terrified UCLA students” in the pro-Palestinian encampment, telling her:“This is urgent. Please. It’s getting bad. No police.”
Administrators at the university said in a 12.40 am statement that they had called in law enforcement officers to stem the violence.
But while Los Angeles police arrived at the scene at about 1.40am, officers did not immediately break up the two sets of protesters, and the clashes continued for at least an hour, the Los Angeles Times and CalMatters reported.
“Counter protestors continue fighting in front of police line about 100ft away,” a CalMatters reporter tweeted shortly before 2 am. Not until nearly 3am did police take action: “Exactly 1 hour after arriving at UCLA, police move in closer and counter-protestors move away, leaving the the encampment alone.” There were “no visible arrests,” CalMatters reported, noting “counter-protesters have left”.
“Horrific acts of violence occurred at the encampment tonight and we immediately called law enforcement for mutual aid support,” Mary Osako, a vice-chancellor at the university, said. “The fire department and medical personnel are on the scene. We are sickened by this senseless violence and it must end.”
Hours later, broadcast footage showed a police cordon slowly clearing a central quad beside the encampment.
It was not clear how many people had been injured in the incident. Nor was it clear who the attackers were. Footage showed mostly male counter-demonstrators, many of them masked and some apparently older than students.
Some yelled pro-Jewish comments as pro-Palestinian protesters tried to fight them off.
“They were coming up here and just violently attacking us,” said one pro-Palestinian protester, Kaia Shah, a researcher at UCLA.
“I just didn’t think they would ever get to this, escalate to this level, where our protest is met by counter-protesters who are violently hurting us, inflicting pain on us, when we are not doing anything to them.”
The Daily Bruin said on X that four of its reporters were followed and assaulted during the night.
Writing on X, the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, condemned the violence as “absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable”.
Ananya Roy, a geography professor at UCLA, condemned the university over its lack of response to the counter-protesters. “It gives people impunity to come to our campus as a rampaging mob,” she told the LA Times. “The word is out they can do this repeatedly and get away with it. I am ashamed of my university.”
The clashes began shortly after Gene Block, the UCLA chancellor, said the campus’s pro-Palestine encampment was “unlawful”, adding that students who remained in it would face disciplinary action.
The 7 October attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza and the ensuing Israeli offensive on the Palestinian territory have unleashed the biggest outpouring of US student activism since the anti-racism protests of 2020.
Late on Tuesday, New York City police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holed up in an academic building on Columbia University campus in New York and removed a protest encampment that the Ivy League school had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.
Live video images showed police in riot gear marching on the campus in upper Manhattan, the focal point of the nationwide student protests. Officers used an armoured vehicle with a bridging mechanism to gain entry to the second floor of the building.
Officers said they used flash-bangs to disperse the crowd but denied using teargas as part of the operation. Officers were seen leading protesters handcuffed with zip-ties to a line of police buses waiting outside campus gates.
The police operation, which was largely over within a couple of hours, follows nearly two weeks of tensions, with pro-Palestinian protesters at the university ignoring an ultimatum on Monday to abandon their encampment or risk suspension.
Columbia University officials had earlier threatened academic expulsion of the students who had seized Hamilton Hall, an eight-storey neoclassical building blocked by protesters who linked arms to form a barricade and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.
The university said on Tuesday it had asked police to enter the campus to “restore safety and order to our community”.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
