Antifa claims responsibility for attack on University of California president’s office

The group stated on the San Francisco Antifa-affiliated blog Indy Bay that on Sunday morning they defaced the building's exterior and released hundreds of cockroaches inside.

“With the Aurora Borealis above us and the martyrs in our hearts, we attacked the UC Office of the President in solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance,” read the post authored by “the sacred black and red.”

“Using a fire extinguisher filled with red paint we covered the facade and smashed seven windows,” the post continued. “Then, with access to the building, we released 500 cockroaches inside and emptied a second fire extinguisher onto the interior.”

(Photo of damage done to the UC Office of the President building. Credit: Indy Blog/Sacred Red and Black)

The group added that they “finalized the act by leaving a water jug inscribed with ‘Bonk’ at the scene - an homage to the militants of Cal Poly Humboldt and the international student encampment movement.”

For context, students at Cal Poly Humboldt used a water jug to hit a police officer in the head as authorities moved in to dismantle the illegal pro-Gaza occupation inside Siemens Hall last month. The incident became an anti-police symbol seen at Gaza camps across the US, with signs featuring a water jug along with the phrase “Bonk the police.”

(Bonk the police sign displayed at University of Washington Gaza Camp. Photo: Katie Daviscourt/The Post Millennial)

The president's office acknowledged to the San Francisco Standard that there had been damage to the building, but it did not confirm that cockroaches had been let loose inside. The offense is being looked into by police as a "hate-related crime."

(Photo of graffiti written on the UC Office of the President building. Credit: Indy Blog/Sacred Red and Black)

“As anti-colonial anarchists and communists we offer this act of material and spiritual solidarity with the hopes of shattering the illusion that resistance is limited to a single site,” the group continued in the post.

“The University’s true fascist form has been put on full display, and hiding behind hollow progressive ideals is no longer an option for the dead-eyed desk killers,” the group wrote. “Abolish the UC showed us in 2020 that the University of California is nothing more than a settler colonial project, that their police are protecting the gates of colony, where knowledge is produced and captured by the State to only dig its claws deeper into the flesh of Indigenous lands here and abroad.”

“Let us not forget the UC became co-ed to breed settlers and populate the west coast,” it added. “Speaking only to the UC’s material connection to the Zionist entity obfuscates the extent of the political, theoretical, and cultural entanglements between the UC and the Israeli State. The University does not simply fund Israel, it creates Israel, and launches this white-colony into the post-modern Empire. What does divestment mean when the very essence and foundation of the institution is a fascist regime? Where does Zionism begin and end in the University of California? Is divestment an oxymoron? The UC must be abolished.”

The anarchist communist group concluded by calling for an “escalation in the imperial core.”

“We join the chorus calling for escalation in the imperial core: escalate, escalate, escalate! This is our historical and spiritual duty. To not hold this as truth is to give up and accept defeat, hoping someone else will do what it takes to disrupt the flow of capital into the settler-colonial project. We must bring the war home,” the group wrote.

In addition to the Gaza camps at California universities, calls for escalation could be heard at other pro-Palestinian encampments, such as the University of Washington. Antifa militants and leftist agitators surrounded a local news photographer and used umbrellas to block his coverage while they repeatedly chanted the words, “Escalate!”