After nearly six weeks of peaceful encampment at California State University, Los Angeles, a group of pro-Palestinian protesters occupied a campus building Wednesday afternoon, trapping employees upstairs where they were told to shelter in place for several hours.
The office of Cal State Los Angeles President Berenecea Johnson Eanes is located in the building. A university spokesman would not confirm whether Ians was among those in the locked-down building, but said a small group of administrators who remained there late Wednesday night were staying “to deal with the situation.”
Protesters blocked entrances and exits to the Student Services Building, an act that university officials called “unauthorized.” KABC-7 video showed the building’s windows damaged and campus furniture overturned and blocking doors.
University spokesman Erik Frost Hollins said the group of 50 to 100 protesters blocked exits to the first floor and blocked pathways around the building. The university asked employees upstairs to shelter in place and others to leave the area.
Late at night, law enforcement officers from various agencies gathered in front of the University Police Department as helicopters circled overhead.
Hollins said the university received an email from the CSULA Gaza Solidarity Camp, a group that has been camped near the campus gym for about 40 days, indicating that its members were conducting a sit-in inside the building. Hollins did not comment on how the university plans to respond, saying only that campus police “are aware and they are in the area.” The University Police Department declined to comment.
One person who attended the protest, who declined to give his university affiliation or name, said the student protesters did not have a “media contact” and would not comment.
Hollins said the university has been working hard to provide space for peaceful, nonviolent protest.
“Unfortunately, today’s actions went in a different direction,” they said.
Just after 7 o’clock in the evening, the camp was silent, with only a few people. The space is enclosed with plywood, pallets and metal campus picnic tables.
Sprayed on the plywood were messages such as: “It’s time to level up!” and “The CSU stops funding genocide.”
At the Student Services Building across campus, protesters covered their faces with bandanas and masks and used umbrellas to block pathways around campus. Some of them carried supplies, such as boxes of yerba mate, coolers, paper cups and paper plates.
