Hundreds of helmeted police swarmed the site of a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of California at Los Angeles early on Thursday, firing flash bangs, arresting defiant demonstrators and dismantling their encampment.
The pre-dawn police crackdown at UCLA marked the latest flashpoint in mounting tensions on U.S. college campuses, where protests over Israel’s war in Gaza have led to student clashes with each other and with law enforcement.
“I’m a student here. I’m an English major,” one student said to television cameras, as police dragged him away. “Please don’t fail us. Don’t fail us.”
Live TV footage showed officers taking down tents, tearing apart barricades and removing the encampment, while arrested protesters sat with their hands restrained behind their backs with zip-ties.
Public property as we knew it in the 60’s has been completely privatised. Our legal system definitions of public spaces haven’t caught up with the modern reality of these spaces so let’s not defend police brutality with this “was it REALLY a public space” semantic bullshit.
I’m not defending anything, it’s just an important distinction