LA County Police give contradictory account of their presence at UCLA encampment last year
A year after the UC Los Angeles pro-Palestine encampment was raided by police and saw a night of violence from counter-protestors, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) told the Daily Bruin that they sent two squads to back up the police encampment sweep effort after an acting captain told the paper they hadn’t participated.
The Daily Bruin requested records from the Los Angeles Police Department, California Highway Patrol, Beverly Hills Police Department and Culver City Police Department about their agencies’ involvement. The paper said that LA Mayor Karen Bass, the UC Police Department (UCPD) and Daily Bruin photos confirmed LASD involvement in the police response to the encampment.
Student organizations including the UC Divest Coalition and UCLA Students for Justice in Palestine started a pro-Palestine encampment on April 25 last year, demanding that the University divest from companies linked with the Israeli military and advocated to reduce policing on campus.
Counter-protesters attacked the encampment on the night of April 30 and police took over three hours to intervene. UCPD, in collaboration with local and state police agencies, swept the encampment on May 2 and arrested hundreds of protesters.
LASD officers were present at the police department’s staging area, provided backup and transported arrestees using two prison buses after receiving a mutual aid request from UCPD, LASD’s acting chief of the special operations division Thomas Giandomenico, said on Feb. 20.
However, the Daily Bruin said LASD did not reveal how many hours it spent at UCLA despite repeated requests from them.
“LASD deputies were not involved in the UCLA event,” Julia Valdes, acting captain of the department’s risk management bureau, said in a February statement to the Daily Bruin.
An attorney from the Student Press Law Center, Mike Hiestand, expressed concern in a written response over LASD’s statements, claiming there is credible evidence of LASD’s involvement.
The discrepancy in the department’s statements was due to “misinterpretation,” Giandomenico said.
The Daily Bruin cited that the California Public Records Act, which specifies that any documents or records that relate to public business must be shared if requested unless there are privacy or public safety concerns with sharing them, according to the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training website.
LASD did not cite privacy or public safety concerns when it responded to the Daily Bruin’s request in May, per the act. Hiestand said in the written statement that public records laws rely on government agencies being honest and transparent about what they do.
UC workers strike this week
About 20,000 UC workers including clinical researchers, IT analysts, mental health counselors and nurse care managers are going on a three-day strike from Feb. 26-28. The move would disrupt patient care, research and other campus functions statewide.
6,000 workers from UC Irvine, UCLA and UC Riverside are part of the strike. The workers are represented by University Professional and Technical Employees Communications Workers of America (UPTE-CWA) Local 9119. The union is currently in the middle of contract negotiations with the university system, who they claim have bargained in bad faith.
UPTE-CWA leadership says its goal is to fix a staffing and retention crisis that harms research and patients. The University maintains there is no such crisis.
In a statement to the LAist, UC spokesperson Heather Hansen said the system has been hiring more staff and that turnover is improving among UPTE-CWA-represented employees.
The union also charged the University with unfair labor practices before the California Public Employment Relations Board. Those charges include allegations that the UC instituted restrictions that limit free speech.
The restrictions include limiting where workers are allowed to protest, disseminating protest flyers and leaflets and limitations on how long union postings can be up on.
A version of this article appeared on p. 2 of the Feb. 27, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.
I’m so proud that our students support Hamas terrorists and their Iranian masters.