Anti-Israel student demonstrators at the University of California, Irvine, gave a brief interview to a local television reporter while being arrested, before being led away by police who had been dispatched to clear the encampment at the school.
“We are protesting genocide,” says student he told Fox 11. surrounded by a large number of police officers.
“They suspended several of our students,” a protester said of the school.
“They suspended several of our students and stopped negotiating with us.”
Before students or reporters could say anything, police pulled the keffiyeh-wearing protesters away from the cameras.
The protester was just one of about 50 people arrested at UCI on Wednesday. According to the Los Angeles Timesafter protesters barricaded themselves inside campus buildings and refused orders to leave.
In addition to students, a number of people claiming to be faculty and staff were also arrested at the demonstrations.
“The police officers here today are scholarships for thousands of students who could have gone to school, had books, and had housing,” one woman lamented. Ta. To ABC7claims to be a professor.
“But instead, a very ruthless prime minister decided to throw thousands of dollars worth of state funds paid by taxpayers into the trash,” she said, referring to the police response at the scene. Told.
About 200 police officers were dispatched to the protest, the LA Times reported, and footage from the scene showed officers tearing down tents at the encampment as they dispersed the protest.
The scene escalated into a minor altercation between Irvine Mayor Farah N. Khan and nearby Newport Beach Mayor Will O’Neill.
“It is unfortunate that peaceful free speech protests are always met with violence. Occupying space on campus or in buildings is not a threat to anyone,” Mayor Khan wrote in a post on X. wrote.
Mr O’Neill viewed the post as a callous indictment of his own officers, who Mr Irvine claimed were sent to support the protests.
“Your careless statements appear to pre-emptively charge our officers and the many law enforcement personnel who responded with violence,” O’Neill said.
“If that’s what you meant, then your message is under the mayor’s authority. If not, make it clear right away.”
