UCLA Violence Prompts Police Response, After Demonstrations Are Broken Up at Columbia

LAPD says it responded to ‘multiple acts of violence’ at the encampment.

Police were deployed to the University of California, Los Angeles after violence flared between groups of protesters, hours after demonstrators were removed from an academic building at Columbia University.

At UCLA, video footage showed fireworks being directed at the encampment and brawls breaking out between protesters, some armed with sticks and other improvised weapons. The Los Angeles Police Department said early Wednesday on X that it was responding, at the request of the university, to “multiple acts of violence” at the encampment.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said on X, “The violence unfolding this evening at UCLA is absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable.”

In New York, police entered Columbia University’s campus late Tuesday, where they removed pro-Palestinian demonstrators from an academic building they had occupied and from encampments on the school’s main plaza.

The events at Columbia and UCLA come after weeks of escalating protests on campuses across the country that have disrupted academic life and inflamed tensions between pro-Palestinian protesters and those who oppose them.

New York Police Department Assistant Commissioner Carlos Nieves said police had to get through doors barricaded with vending machines and sofas to enter Columbia’s Hamilton Hall. He said police used loud distraction devices to subdue protesters in the building.

As officers in helmets removed people from Columbia’s campus through a mixture of verbal orders and physical pushing, students yelled “shame!” and “revolution!” at them. Some people were escorted onto police buses with their hands zip-tied behind their backs. The NYPD confirmed that they made several arrests, but didn’t give specific numbers.

A university spokesman confirmed that it requested police to come onto campus a little after 9 p.m.

In Los Angeles, the violence broke out after a group of individuals, some with their faces covered, tried to remove barricades from a pro-Palestinian encampment that the university had earlier demanded disperse, video footage showed.

Some kicked and pulled at the barricade as brawls erupted. Once police arrived, officers formed a human barrier between the two groups and began pushing protesters away from the scene.

In a letter sent to the NYPD Tuesday, Columbia President Minouche Shafik wrote, “The takeover of Hamilton Hall and the continued encampments raise serious safety concerns for the individuals involved and the entire community. The actions of these individuals are unfortunately escalating. These activities have become a magnet for protesters outside our gates which creates significant risk to our campus and disrupts the ability of the University to continue normal operations.”