A pair of recent reports heavily criticize the UCLA Police Department’s response to a pro-Palestinian encampment in late April and the department’s communication with other law enforcement agencies when violence occurred on April 30 and May 1.
A report submitted by interim chief Dominic Choi of the Los Angeles Police Department to the Los Angeles Police Commission, released Friday, cited little coordination between UCLA police and assisting agencies, including LAPD and the California Highway Patrol, in responding to the violence.
A separate Oct. 30 report by the Republican-led U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce said UCLA “stood by and failed to act” as an illegal pro-Palestinian encampment “violated Jewish students’ civil rights and placed (the) campus at risk.”
Campus violence broke out around 11 p.m. on April 30 between the encampment and pro-Israel counter-protesters and continued for about two hours before police intervened and separated the two sides.
The encampment was torn down by CHP officers on May 2 and a total of 209 arrests were reported.
Weeks after the violence, then-UCLA Police Chief John Thomas was temporarily reassigned as the Office of Campus Safety conducted an examination of the school’s security processes. Gene Block, UCLA’s chancellor at the time of the unrest, faced Congressional leaders in Washington as they probed what went wrong.
The LAPD report to the police commission highlighted UCLA’s distancing from the LAPD following “Defund the Police” protests in 2020, which the agency said contributed to a lack of coordination in response to the Spring violence.
Arriving officers had difficulty navigating the campus and received conflicting orders about what to do as the violence unfolded, the report said.
The federal report, which cited “dramatic failures in confronting antisemitism,” criticized university leaders for allowing “the creation of a hostile environment for Jewish students,” and holding off, rather than stepping in, when they discovered what was happening.
“Over the course of the next day, it became apparent to UCPD and campus administrators that the university was underequipped to manage this rapidly escalating situation,” the House report said.
In discussing the LAPD report at Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners, Lizabeth Rhodes, the Director of LAPD’s Office of Constitutional Policing and Policy, said a revised memorandum of agreement with UCLA was in the works, but Choi also told the board that the department didn’t have to wait for a finalized version of changes to work with UCLA on bettering communication of responsibilities and expectations.
“After today, we should expect more events like this,” Police Commission Board President Erroll Southers said. “If not for any other reason in response to the election, in response to an inauguration and other significant national events that could occur that could kick off the kind of thing that happened here, but maybe for a different reason.”
Board Vice President Rasha Gerges Shields said LAPD was the first to put out an after-action report, which “puts a bullseye on the department at times, but I also think that it’s important to assess so that there’s improvements.”
A more detailed timeline
A UCLA patrol officer on April 25 suggested in a UCLA police message thread that police should identify and remove people who were not UCLA students, staff or faculty from a recently formed encampment at Royce Quad in the center of campus, the House report said.
Officers were then notified that UCLA had “opted to ‘hold off’.”
That same day, at 5 a.m., Chief Thomas sent texts to two LAPD commanders that tents were being set up on campus and UCLA “may need some assistance as the day progresses,” the LAPD report to the police commission said. A police lieutenant later informed Thomas that more than 50 people were unloading wood, tents and other materials from a truck.
The college closed off a nearby street to prevent further access, but the tents were still set up and the encampment grew to about 150 people, the House report stated.
Campus leaders “worried that they would be unable to restrict access to the area or prevent further expansion of the encampment without a significant surge in manpower, with one senior administrator warning that ‘no temporary fence is going to keep these people out’,” the House report said.
On April 27, Choi approved two mobile field force squads to stand by near UCLA, but Thomas told an LAPD commander that, with Beverly Hills, Culver City and Santa Monica police departments also assisting, LAPD would be a last resort, according to the LAPD report.
The following morning, Thomas texted a group of other agencies, including LAPD, that more pro-Palestinian protesters were arriving on campus. A short time later, a UCLA police lieutenant texted the group that UCLA had “no plans” of clearing out the protesters. About 1,000 counter-protesters arrived at 10:30 a.m. that morning and 500 more pro-Palestinian protesters arrived, the LAPD report said.
Less than 15 minutes later, reports of fighting were called in to law enforcement. A single squad car from West LA was dispatched to the protest, and additional officers were later sent to campus to help clear protesters, the report said.
Around 1:30 p.m., an LAPD commander texted a group of LAPD senior staff that the pro-Israel crowd was thinning out. UCLA administrators were discussing clearing the encampment entirely, but Choi said he did not support clearing everyone. All pro-Israel protesters were cleared by 3:15 p.m.
On the night of April 30, pro-Israel protesters again arrived at the campus. Calls to 911 began just after 11 p.m. At 11:07 p.m., Thomas told LAPD Commander Steve Lurie that UCLA police were being overwhelmed by the crowd while attempting to rescue an injured person, but an official request for mutual aid wasn’t made until after 11:30 p.m., the LAPD report said.
The first units arrived from West Los Angeles Station just before 12:15 a.m., May 1. At 1:25, “It becomes apparent to Commander Lurie that UCLAPD had not formed a plan or team to break up protesters. Chief Choi calls Commander Lurie and tells him to take what resources he had available and go into the protest to end the violence,” the report said.
By 2:45 a.m., CHP began clearing the courtyard of protesters and the courtyard was emptied of all pro-Israel protesters about an hour later, the report said.
The encampment was dismantled by CHP the following day.
LAPD offers recommendations
The LAPD report recommended that LAPD, UCLAPD and other law enforcement agencies “establish procedures to allow for a command takeover in circumstances when the agency with the primary responsibility for a particular jurisdiction is overwhelmed and unable to protect its community due to the small size of the agency.”
A command takeover was preferred over mobile field force teams with officers from different agencies “due to varying use of force policies and tactics,” the report said.
It also called for better coordination between LAPD and UCLAPD and that LAPD officers would have benefited from clearer directions on how to navigate the campus.
The report also recommended better internal record keeping and training to improve response to future protests.
USC less scrutinized
A second LAPD report to the Board of Police Commissioners regarding a protest at USC around that time where 94 arrests were made on April 24 at a pro-Palestinian encampment at Alumni Park, was shorter and less critical.
In that report, LAPD said it sent 619 officers to the campus between April 25 and May 5 and recommended that police do a better job of tracking personnel to estimate costs and follow reporting procedures on use of force more closely so those cases can be investigated internally in a timely way.
USC had one documented use of force case involving a “less lethal” projectile, and another that involved a baton. They were properly reported but not immediately investigated, the report said.
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