Protesters at UCLA had tools and professional guides, police say – NBC Los Angeles

Tools that police said could have been used to break into and barricade a building, including metal pipes and bolt cutters, were among the items found after a group of about 40 people protested on Monday was arrested at UCLA, the university police department said.

The people were arrested Monday in a parking garage on the Westwood campus during a day of demonstrations over the war in Gaza that forced school officials to move all classes to remote learning. Tensions were already high on campus, where a sizable protest camp that had been on campus for weeks had been cleared days earlier by authorities in a pre-dawn police operation.

During Monday’s unrest, officials said they took people into custody in the parking garage to determine whether they were students, staff or faculty. The campus is closed to people outside the university every day between 12:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m

“Several people in the group were in possession of tools and items that could be used to unlawfully enter and barricade a building, including heavy-duty metal pipes, bolt cutters, epoxy glue, superglue, padlocks, heavy-duty chains, and documentation.” Promoting violence and vandalism.” said UCLA Police in a news release.

Among the items found was literature titled “The Do-It-Yourself Occupant Guide, 2024 Edition.” The guide’s introduction states that the updated edition “comes against the backdrop of a nationwide resurgence of student careers in 2024, beginning at Columbia University in New York, in response to an ongoing genocide in Palestine.”

Police provided images of the document and tools in a news release. It was not immediately clear how many people in the group were in possession of the tools and documents.

Around the time of the parking garage arrests around 6 a.m. Monday, officers responded to UCLA’s Moore Hall, where several people were gathering inside and outside the building. Moore Hall was closed at this time. Campus police said a student organization registered at UCLA posted a statement on social media urging people to occupy the building.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said 21st Century Policing Solutions will try to find those responsible for the violence. Alex Rozier of NBC Los Angeles reports.

“It emerged that the individuals in Parking Garage 2 had hatched a plan to break into Moore Hall using bolt cutters, padlocks, epoxy glue, superglue, heavy-duty chains and metal bars to occupy and destroy the location,” police said.

Around 8:30 a.m., dozens of people left Moore Hall and headed to Dodd Hall, which was open and being used for midterms. They eventually left the building and joined a protest at Bruin Plaza before leaving the area.

Conflicts and crises on campuses across California over the past two weeks. Now get ready for the lawsuits and investigations. NBC4’s Conan Nolan speaks with Rep. Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Hollywood), whose district includes UCLA. He is chairman of the Democratic caucus in Sacramento. He is calling for a federal civil rights investigation into campus administration for its failure to protect Jewish students from harassment and assault, as well as its failure to protect Palestinian protesters from outside attacks like Wednesday’s melee.

42 people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy and criminal offenses. Two were taken into custody for obstructing a peace officer. They were charged and tried at a prison in the San Fernando Valley, then released from custody. Four of the 44 people arrested Monday were arrested May 2 after they failed to leave the Royce Quad campground despite an eviction order, university police said.

Thirty of those arrested were UCLA students and nine had no connection to the school, police said. Two said they were members of the media but did not have press credentials, according to police.

Over the weekend, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block announced a newly created Office of Campus Safety to manage policing and emergency management. On May 23, Block is scheduled to testify before Congress about UCLA’s response to anti-Semitism on campus and measures to protect Jewish students.

On April 30, violence erupted at the UCLA protest camp when fighting broke out between pro-Palestinian protesters and counter-protesters.

The war in Gaza began on October 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 250 others. Israel says militants are still holding about 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

On Monday, the Israeli army ordered tens of thousands of Palestinians in the southern Gaza city of Rafah to begin evacuating. The warning is a signal that a ground invasion could be imminent, months after the attack by the militant Hamas group.

The Rafah border crossing with Egypt has been closed since the Israeli military took control of the Palestinian side early Tuesday. A first ship carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza was on its way to a US military floating platform on Thursday. The plan is to transfer the cargo at the pier onto smaller US boats that will bring it ashore.