LOS ANGELES – Police dispersed a group of pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA and set up barriers around Royce Hall that will remain in place Thursday for anticipated May Day demonstrations.
Between 150 and 200 demonstrators gathered on UCLA campus grounds, first at Royce Hall around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and eventually in Westwood Village around 10:30 p.m. Three of the demonstrators were arrested, one for slapping a security guard and the other two for interfering with police trying to break up the demonstration.
The demonstration was organized by a group called Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA. They were planning to show a documentary film, “The Encampments,” on campus, first at Wilson Plaza at 7:30 p.m. It is a film about protests at university campuses across the country.
The group of demonstrators marched to De Neve Plaza and blocked traffic from Gayley Avenue to Le Conte Drive before heading to Westwood Plaza and the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
The demonstrations Wednesday night come a year after pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups clashed on campus.
Steve Lurie, UCLA’s associate vice chancellor of campus and community safety, told NBC 4 that the protesters were violating internal UCLA policies by setting up screens and attempting to show the documentary.
“We attempted to stop them from doing that,” Lurie told NBC 4.
SJP posted on social media about the attempts by police to break up the demonstrations.
“As of a few minutes ago, police charged into our group of protesters with batons raised, rubber bullets guns, and motorcycles that nearly HIT students. We were gathering to honor Palestine, and to remember the violence that occurred on our very campus one year ago today,” the SJP wrote in a post to its Instagram account.
SJP planned to have a rally at Dickson Plaza but changed plans when the UC Police Department closed the area Wednesday and blocked access with metal barriers following the arrest of one of the protesters around 2:30 p.m., according to a Daily Bruin report.
“We invite you all to watch the documentary in solidarity to honor one year since the encampment at UCLA,” SJP said in a post to its Instagram account. “We watch the film in protest of UCLA’s violence towards its students & community members, and its financial & academic complicity in the Palestinian genocide.”
The metal barriers and barricades will remain in place Thursday, Lurie said. Thousands of University of California health care, research and technical workers will stage a one-day strike at UC facilities across the state, one of several demonstrations planned in Los Angeles for May Day.
More than 20,000 University of California health care, research and technical workers represented by the University Professional and Technical Employees union are planning to picket starting at 8 a.m. at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
Lurie told NBC 4 he doesn’t expect encampments of protesters to return to UCLA.
“I’m not concerned the encampments will come back,” Lurie said, “because we are not going to allow it.”
But it shows there are determined protesters and demonstrator who want to come back here… and that’s not going to happen, he added.
