Nearly two weeks after counter-protesters attacked a pro-Palestinian camp at the University of California, Los Angeles, university officials still have not explained why security guards were on standby for hours while the attack was in progress. and the assailants have not been arrested. The worst violence occurred in the university protests that have rocked the nation, with crowds of people brandishing metal rods, water bottles and firecrackers.
Witnesses have come forward to describe the chaotic and violent night of April 30, saying students and bystanders repeatedly called 911 and non-emergency lines, but received little help and the phones hung up. The extent of the negligence has become clear in recent days. A dispatcher told one of the callers seeking help, “I'm hanging up because we have a real emergency to deal with.”
A local TV station filmed a man on the phone with emergency dispatchers, warning them that people were injured. “Guards have abandoned this camp,” I heard him say before putting the phone down and looking at it. “They hung up again,” he said incredulously.
A few miles away in Sacramento, staff from Gov. Gavin Newsom's office contacted the UCLA chancellor's office shortly after 11 p.m. to confirm that law enforcement officers were responding to the scene, and more police were called in, officials said. He was convinced that the government was coming. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to publish the discussion.
But as the night wore on and there was no intervention, the governor's office moved to bypass local authorities and ordered California Highway Patrol troopers to enter the campus, the official said. State troopers began converging on campus at 1:45 a.m., shortly before Los Angeles Police Department riot police arrived, but it took another hour to quell the confrontation.
The Prime Minister's Office, the Los Angeles Police Department, and an outside consultant hired to investigate the delayed response have all declined to discuss the matter pending the outcome of an investigation that could take weeks or months. I'm refusing. Campus Police Chief John Thomas also had no comment. He told the Los Angeles Times that he relied on private security, which had no arrest powers, but “did everything we could” to keep students safe.
To understand what happened, New York Times reporters interviewed several people who were participating in the protests that night. Two people who participated in the counter-demonstration were among them. Video footage was reviewed and analyzed. And I spoke with organizations on campus involved in both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel movements.
The investigation found there were no public calls for such violent attacks and no clear indication that one group had coordinated the attack, but some people, wearing black clothing and masks, appeared to be preparing for violence. It looked like it had arrived. There was also no indication that police were preparing for a violent attack like the one that occurred at the encampment.
Instead, the contracted security guards, who did not have enough authority or numbers to stop the escalating brawl, appeared to have been caught by surprise and forced to wait hours for reinforcements that never arrived.
“Either the university was reluctant to involve law enforcement, or law enforcement was dealing with accreditation issues and political considerations by elected officials,” said former Boston Police Commissioner Crowd Control. Ed Davis, an expert on police issues, said: “Then things got out of hand.”
Despite growing concerns on campus about pro-Palestinian encampments and complaints about anti-Semitic incidents and the potential for violence, university officials warned that during the early stages of the protests, outside police He made it clear that dispatching would only be considered as a last resort.
“We are following the University of California system-wide policy guidance that directs us not to preemptively seek law enforcement involvement and only when absolutely necessary to protect the physical safety of our campus community. ,” said Mary Osako, vice provost for strategic communications. Statement on April 26th, shortly after the encampment was set up.
On the night of April 30, a diverse group of counter-demonstrators gathered, and the number grew as expectations grew that police would begin clearing the encampment. Witnesses said in interviews that there was little warning before the protesters launched the attack.
One counter-demonstrator, Liel Asheryan, was seen on video footage kicking the encampment's plywood fence, dragging the board to the ground and slamming a tennis racket into the remaining wood. He said he went to see the encampment alone that night. However, he later admitted that his friend was also photographed at the scene. In an interview, he said that he did not belong to any group and that he had no intention of participating in the conflict.
Asherian said he approached the pro-Palestinian camp to ask some people why they were protesting. He said he believes Jews like him and Palestinians are like cousins, and expressed concern that innocent Palestinians were killed in Israeli military operations.But he said he doesn't like the destructive tactics pro-Palestinian protesters are using at UCLA.
He said the situation escalated after someone called him a “dirty Jew” and he was pepper sprayed.
“That's when I started breaking down their barricades,” he said.
Among the counter-demonstrators that night was activist Narek Parian, who is known for frequently making anti-Semitic statements and criticizing homosexuals and transgender people. He went alone and said he was motivated in part by watching a video of a pro-Palestinian Jewish woman criticizing white people.
“I especially wanted to go look for her,” he said, adding that he couldn't do that.
Parian said he doesn't necessarily support either side in protests or wars.
He said he spent much of the night questioning people about their positions and trying to stop people from fighting by throwing makeshift weapons into nearby bushes. Parian, who is Armenian-American, said he also warned two young Armenian boys not to get involved in the scuffle.
“I told them, 'This isn't ours,'” he said.
Anthony Cabassa, a self-proclaimed conservative independent journalist who posted a video of the chaos, said he believed police were coming in to clear the encampment on Tuesday night, hours after UCLA declared the encampment illegal. It is possible that many people gathered at the scene. arrest.
But then counter-demonstrators stormed the protest, pulled the metal gates away from the group and attacked the demonstrators.
“We were all waiting for the LAPD to show up, and they never came,” Cabassa said in an interview. “As the night went on, more and more pro-Israel people started showing up, to the point where we started to get worried.”
He said some people appeared to have arrived wanting to witness what would happen next after watching a broadcast of the tense scenes he and other livestreamers had created.
“People have responded to my livestreams and said, 'I was just in it for you,' and I live nearby,” he said. But others, wearing all black outfits and ski masks, appeared to be planning for a potential confrontation, he said. Mr. Cabassa recalled that he was concerned about their presence.
More than 30 protesters were ultimately injured before police dispersed the crowd, according to the Los Angeles Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Brian H. Levin, founding director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said recent protests have centered on religion and ethnicity, and that this attack amounted to a hate crime.
“This comes at a time when major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, are experiencing a surge in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes and breaking records for anti-Semitic crimes,” he said.
Levin watched the incident on a livestream and said the weapons, the presence of some of the same people from previous protests, and the waving of yellow flags associated with Chabad-Lubavitch, a Hasidic Jewish movement, were a sign of an organization among counter-protesters. He said that this suggests a type of cooperation.
The director of nearby Chabad House said the group had no role in that night's protests.
But he also said that some of the tools used by counter-protesters were “opportunistic and spontaneous weapons” and that some people “have their own xenophobic or religious prejudices.” “Maybe it just appeared randomly.”
The next day, after the counter-protesters left, police moved in to clear the pro-Palestinian encampment and arrested more than 200 people.
Marie Salem, a UCLA graduate student and one of the protesters, asked why police had arrested dozens of student demonstrators, but not yet arrested any of the students who attacked them. I wondered.
“The majority of the campers were students at this university and they were not violent,” Salem said. “We were exposed to violence, and the opponents appeared to be mostly non-students, yet the university chose to protect them over its own students.”
Jonathan Wolf and Sean Huebler Contributed to the report. Susan C. Beachy and kitty bennett Contributed to research.
