UCLA police arrest first person in attack on protest camp on April 30

UCLA police made the first arrest in connection with with the attack of 30 April An 18-year-old man was arrested in a pro-Palestinian camp on the Beverly Hills campus, the university announced on Friday.

Officers arrested the suspect, identified as 18-year-old Edan On, on suspicion of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, campus police said. He was taken to jail Thursday, where he was being held on $30,000 bail.

Investigators identified him from a video that allegedly shows him attacking those housed at the camp with a wooden stake, seriously injuring at least one person, according to UCLA police. He was tracked down after investigators spoke with witnesses, interviewed victims and reviewed surveillance footage and other videos taken that night, the university said in a news release.

UCLA said the suspect was neither a student nor a faculty or staff member of the university.

The arrest came just over three weeks after a group of counter-protesters approached the encampment on the Westwood campus, leading to clashes in which fireworks were thrown and some people were shot with tear gas.

The “group of instigators came to Royce Quad and violently attacked students, faculty and staff who had set up camp at the location,” UCLA said in an earlier statement.

Rick Braziel, who was appointed head of the new Office of Campus Safety In the days following the protests, police issued a statement about the arrest, confirming that it was the first in the ongoing investigation into the April 30 attack.

“As Chancellor Block has communicated, those who have committed violence against our community will be held accountable to the fullest extent possible under the law,” Deputy Chancellor Braziel said in the statement.

On Thursday, a day before the arrest was announced, lawmakers in Washington, DC, said criticized the leadership of UCLA Chancellor Gene Block during a hearing in the House of Representatives. Block testified about the response to protests on campus and the university’s handling of allegations of discrimination against students and faculty.

While some parliamentarians accused him of not doing enough to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitism, others criticized his oversight of police investigations into violent incidents – particularly on the night of April 30.

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota told Block that UCLA leadership and police “stood by for hours” while a “mob of agitators” attacked people housed at the camp. She held up a photo from that night and called it “horrific.”

“Are any of these people in prison? Are any of these people arrested?” Omar asked the Chancellor, holding up the photo.

Block said LAPD investigators were searching through photos and other images to find possible suspects.

“It’s been over a month,” Omar replied.

Earlier this week, Rasha Gerges Shields, vice president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, asked LAPD investigators what they were doing to find the perpetrators involved in the violence at UCLA on the evening of April 30. She said she had heard from some members of the Palestinian and Muslim American communities calling for justice.

“There are concerns that law enforcement is not doing enough to catch the perpetrators,” Shields said. “I want to know what role the department is playing in identifying and bringing to justice those who attacked the protesters.”

Deputy Police Chief Daniel Randolph said the agency is assisting the UCLA Police Department in locating suspects, along with investigators from police departments at other universities within the University of California’s 10-campus system.

“I know they’re combing through the digital evidence and trying to solve the incident,” Randolph said of investigators reviewing photos and videos.