Hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside the San Diego central jail downtown Monday, chanting “let them go,” hours after police in riot gear cleared a protest encampment at UC San Diego and arrested 65 people.
The rally followed the first large, violent confrontation between police and protesters on the UCSD campus in decades — a confrontation prompted by an early-morning raid for which the university closed vehicular access to all of the campus west of Interstate 5, moved classes online and brought in multiple law enforcement agencies.
It also followed five days of peaceful protest on a campus that had so far avoided the kinds of clashes that have roiled other campuses nationwide amid demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Throughout Monday morning, hundreds of police clashed with protesters near the university’s iconic Geisel Library, after authorities quickly dismantled a tent village and arrested dozens.
The crackdown that drew swift condemnation from some faculty members.
“I am a faculty member, but today they are my teacher,” said Gary Fields, a UCSD professor who teaches a class on dissent and protest, as he pointed to students outside the jail Monday afternoon. He said school administrators had “turned the police on a completely peaceful and legal demonstration.”
In a statement late Monday afternoon, Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said the university encourages peaceful protests, “but this encampment violated campus policy and the law and grew to pose an unacceptable risk to the safety of the campus community.” He said demonstrators were given repeated warnings to disperse before arrests were made.
The tension began shortly before 6 a.m. Monday, when police massed near the roughly 50-tent encampment just off Library Walk and told protesters within it that they had 10 minutes to disperse or face arrest. Authorities began arresting demonstrators who had stayed soon after, while others nearby chanted “free, free Palestine.”
It was not immediately clear if efforts had been made by either side to negotiate an end to the encampment before the police action. Protesters’ supporters said the university had not made any such attempt before moving in. The school said made multiple requests for the protesters to disperse in recent days, but did not address whether it tried to negotiate beforehand.
Subrein Damanhoury, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement and spokesperson for the UCSDivest coalition that had organized the encampment, said students were asleep in tents when dozens of officers in riot gear arrived around 5:30 a.m.
“From my knowledge, the encampment was peaceful,” she said. “They were sleeping. There was nothing going on. From what we know, the administration has not come out to talk to the students about their demands, so this was unexpected.”
Officers began making arrests, leading students away one at a time, with their hands zip-tied behind their backs.
Khosla cited “significant dangers” at the site, saying police had found stakes, propane tanks, metal and plywood shields, aerosol spray cans and a sword and that protesters at the camp had refused access to fire and health inspectors, set up checkpoints and limited free movement.
It took about an hour to tear it down and cart everything off.
After police cleared the camp, a growing crowd assembled along Library Walk nearby. The first flare-up in their standoff occurred in mid-morning as dozens of protesters got into shoving matches with police trying to transport people who had been arrested off campus in two buses and tried…
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