UCLA student agitators sue California, LA over police use of rubber bullets to break up Gaza camp, quell violence

Rubber bullets are part of the strategy of non-lethal crowd control measures. Violent protests and demonstrations raged on UCLA's campus in the wake of the terror attacks on Israel in October 2023. The campus activists prevented Jewish students from entering campus.

The legal action stems from a confrontation that began on April 30, 2024, when pro-Palestine demonstrators clashed with a group of pro-Israel counter-protesters. Pro-protesters played the national anthem over loudspeakers, holding signs that said "Hamas & supporters are not welcome on native land."

Campus police requested assistance from LAPD at about 11:45 pm and officers from the city force arrived two hours later. It took officers until 3:20 to separate the groups of dueling protesters. Classes were cancelled the next day due to the "distress" caused by the protests.

A separate lawsuit claimed that police officers stood by as counter-protesters launched fireworks, sprayed chemical agents, and allegedly harassed and sexually assaulted students and faculty who were part of the encampment.

In still another suit, it was alleged that UCLA administrators ordered police to stand down and step aside and that security officers were assigned to the area to prevent pro-Israel students from accessing the area of the Gaza encampment.

Following the incident, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and UCLA administrators coordinated the removal of the pro-Palestinian encampment. On May 1, outside law enforcement, including the California Highway Patrol and the Los Angeles Police Department, were brought in to clear the area.

According to the new lawsuit, officers fired more than 50 rounds of rubber bullets into the crowd, causing several injuries. One student reportedly suffered shattered bones in her hand, while another was diagnosed with internal bleeding and required hospitalization.

Attorney Ricci Sergienko, who represents the protesters, filed the lawsuit on Thursday and said state officials including Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom must be held accountable.

“These attacks also happened in Democratic-run cities and blue states,” Sergienko said, according to a report by The Intercept. “That is a clear, direct path to what’s happening now with Trump, because the Democratic Party and their leaders made enemies out of these young people.”

“If you want to talk about fascism, they deployed a police state on campuses all across California,” he added. “We want to talk about what fascism is, and authoritarian repression and suppression — that is modeled here in California.”

The lawsuit argues that officers violated state law, which bars the use of projectiles against protesters unless there is an objectively reasonable threat to life or serious injury. It also notes that UCLA revised its guidelines after the 2020 protests to limit the use of outside police forces on campus.

More than 200 individuals were arrested during the clearing of the UCLA encampment. By June 2024, UCLA was ordered by a federal judge to put a plan in place to allow Jewish students to have equal access to the campus after the Gaza activists prevented them from entering campus and even set up checkpoints.

A lawsuit brough by Jewish students said that the Gaza activists limited their access to parts of the campus and told them they would not be able to pass unless they “disavowed Israel’s right to exist.”