The Iron Heel of the State at UCLA: Eyewitness Account

 

"Biden Biden, Whattaya Say? How Many Kids You Kill Today?”

This was one of the militant chants of hundreds of students on May 1 at UCLA. I went to the university after covering the May Day rally in Hollywood, arriving around 4:00 p.m., and this is what I witnessed at the front lines of the class struggle in Westwood:

I made my way on foot across the sprawling campus toward the epicenter of the unfolding action, the UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment, led by Students for Justice in Palestine and the UC Divest Coalition at UCLA. The first thing I noticed was the sound of helicopters hovering overhead and a heavy security presence. The latter included the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the LA County Sheriff’s Department (LASD), California Highway Patrol, UCPD and CSC, a private firm specializing in crowd management. Upon reaching Dickson Plaza, the rather large area was cordoned off with metal barricades.

In the distance, flanked by august collegiate buildings, I could see the encampment and hear speeches being made with bullhorns (although I could not make out what speakers were saying). In the foreground I could see a jumbotron flying two Israeli flags in front of the nearby tent city behind plywood walls, from which pro-Zionist propaganda had been blared, but was at that moment quiet. When I approached yellow vest-wearing CSC guards controlling checkpoints, they refused to allow me in without an official press pass (which, by the way, are issued by LAPD and/or the Sheriff’s Department), and refused to consider stories I had written under my byline as proof that I was, indeed, a journalist.

Determined to cover the students, I kept walking around Dickson Plaza; CHP vehicles lined the street. At another checkpoint I asked to speak to a media liaison for the UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment and pro-Encampment individuals summoned a young woman who appeared after a few minutes, calling herself “Mona.” 

To prove my bona fides, I showed her articles I had written, including an interview with independent presidential candidate Cornel West (wherein he called for a cease-fire in Gaza as far back as early November—see: truthdig.com.)

Mona was friendly and disputed that police had given the occupiers a legally valid dispersal order to abandon their “tent-in” (my term) by 6:00 p.m. She gave me a printout of the Encampment’s five bullet-pointed “demands” to the university, including:

“Divest: Withdraw all UC-wide and UCLA Foundation funds from companies and institutions that are complicit in the Israeli occupation, apartheid, and Genocide of the Palestinian people.” The demands went on to call for UCLA to “Disclose… full-transparency to all UC-wide and UCLA Foundation assets including investments, donations, and grants.” “Abolish Policing: End the targeted repression of pro-Palestinian advocacy… and sever all ties with LAPD” and “Boycott” ties to Israeli universities. The anti-war students also demanded that UCLA “call[s] for “ceasefire and end to the occupation and Genocide in Palestine.”  (more...)

The Iron Heel of the State at UCLA: Eyewitness Account