80 pro-Hamas activists arrested for blockade at UC Santa Cruz
Late last month, police officers were called in to end an anti-Israel blockade that resulted in dozens of arrests at UC Santa Cruz.
Hundreds of officers from around northern California were required to break up the disruptive encampment.
On May 31, police were brought in to end an anti-Israel blockade that resulted in dozens of arrests at a public campus in northern California.
Officers dismantled a pro-Hamas encampment that was blocking the main entrance to the University of California, Santa Cruz. Hundreds of officers from various departments, including those from Eureka, San Francisco, Watsonville, and the California Highway Patrol, surrounded the encampment and prepared to disperse the protesters.
At approximately 4 a.m., authorities used portable light towers to illuminate the area and ordered the demonstrators to disperse. While some protestors complied, many others reportedly remained.
After several hours, police took the remaining demonstrators to a nearby intersection and began making arrests.
[RELATED: PARTY’S OVER: Police arrest over 100 Hamas-endorsed UCLA campus occupiers]
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Communications and Marketing Scott Hernandez-Jason said in a statement that the demonstrators “were given repeated, clear direction to remove the encampment and cease blocking access to numerous campus resources and to the campus itself” before police engaged.
Hernandez-Jason also said that protesters were “notified that their actions were unlawful and unsafe … [and were] given multiple warnings by law enforcement to leave the area and disperse to avoid arrest.”
Days earlier on May 28, UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cynthia Larive implored the protesters to allow traffic into and out of campus.
“I imagine that many who are engaging in these protests believe themselves to be well-intentioned individuals who are trying to make change through their spheres of influence,” Larive wrote. “Unfortunately, the actions of these individuals that we experienced today were extremely harmful to others in our community.”
Larive also called out protesters for barricades, rocks, and glass that were spread across entrances to the university, calling such actions “not the work of individuals seeking peaceful resolution.”
“Blocking entrances is unlawful and infringes on the rights of our students, faculty, and staff, who are trying to learn, teach, and go about their lives,” Larive wrote. “Members of our community were unable to leave campus to pick up their children, to access medical care off campus, to show up to off-campus jobs, to leave campus after an early morning shift or to come onto campus for an afternoon or evening shift.”
Larive also announced that classes would be remote for the remainder of the week as a result of the disruption.
Campus Reform has contacted UC Santa Cruz for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.