Police have arrested more than 2,000 people during pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the United States in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press tally Thursday.
Demonstrations – and arrests – have occurred in almost every corner of the nation. But in the last 24 hours, they’ve drawn the most attention at the University of California, Los Angeles, where chaotic scenes played out early Thursday when officers in riot gear surged against a crowd of demonstrators.
Hundreds of protesters at UCLA defied orders to leave, some forming human chains as police fired flash-bangs to break up the crowds.
At least 200 people were arrested, said Sgt. Alejandro Rubio of the California Highway Patrol, citing data from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Rubio said they were being booked at the county jails complex near downtown Los Angeles. UCLA police will determine what charges to bring.
Later Thursday morning, workers removed barricades and dismantled the protesters’ fortified encampment. Bulldozers scooped up bags of trash and tents. Some buildings were covered in graffiti.
Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century.
The demonstrations began at Columbia University on April 17, with students calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there. Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages in an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
