UCLA Gaza Protesters Sue Cops for Shooting Them in the Head With Rubber Bullets

Police conspired to violently attacks anti-genocide protesters at the University of California Los Angeles last year according to a suit filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court At the height of the school s encampment against Israel s war on Gaza last spring one of hundreds across the country a mob of pro-Israel protesters attacked pro-Palestine protesters for more than four hours On the night of April police stood by and watched as counter-protesters aimed and shot fireworks sprayed chemical agents harassed and sexually assaulted pro-Palestine protesters students and faculty alleged last month in a separate ongoing lawsuit Related NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred from Sitting Final Exams The day after the melee Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass UCLA administrators and seven different law enforcement agencies laid plans to dismantle the school s encampment for good UCLA invited multiple outside police forces to campus to clear the encampments on May More than police officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff s Department the Los Angeles Police Department California Highway Patrol the University of California Police Department and private precaution were on campus the night of the raid Protesters are now suing the state of California which oversees California Highway Patrol and the city of Los Angeles which oversees the LAPD for violence against the demonstrations The police fired more than rounds of rubber bullets at protesters striking several people in the head particular of the injuries sent demonstrators to the hospital The projectiles shattered bones in one trainee s hand and required her to undergo surgery and extensive rehab Another person who police shot in the head was diagnosed with internal bleeding The governor s office referred questions to California Highway Patrol CHP LAPD and UCLA did not respond to requests for comment If you want to talk about fascism they deployed a police state on campuses all across California A lawyer for the protesters disclosed it was critical to hold Bass and California Gov Gavin Newsom often mentioned as practicable future party leaders to account because though the governing agents are Democrats their actions against the protesters helped give rise to Donald Trump s extreme crackdown These attacks also happened in Democratic-run cities and blue states disclosed attorney Ricci Sergienko who filed the suit on Thursday 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 Sergienko revealed We want to talk about what fascism is and authoritarian repression and suppression that is modeled here in California Rules on Rubber Bullets The new lawsuit says police violated that law and protesters rights under the state constitution when they attacked people at the encampment last May Related Police Attacks on Protesters With Less Than Lethal Weapons Upshot in Life-Threatening Injuries After protests against police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in police took heavy criticism for repeatedly shooting protesters with rubber or foam bullets even losing a major lawsuit over the issue Agencies like the LAPD and LA Sheriff s Department faced injunctions restricting the use of weapons like rubber bullets also known as -millimeter kinetic impact projectiles In California lawmakers responded by passing a law that prohibited officers from using the projectiles against protests unless the situation presented an objective reasonable defense against a threat to life or serious injury In the wake of the protests UCLA also changed its guidelines to prioritize deescalation tactics and minimize use of outside police forces on campus California Highway Patrol on the other hand responds less frequently to protests and was not accused of using similar weapons in CHP officers nonetheless stormed UCLA encampments last spring and fired more than rounds of the kinetic impact projectiles revealed Becca Brown another attorney working on the lawsuit LAPD did it as well but they did not use them quite as heavily as CHP Brown stated Read our complete coverage Chilling Dissent The new California law restricts the indiscriminate use of rubber bullets into a crowd because they can be and have been deadly Brown explained They cannot be used indiscriminately she announced They cannot be used merely because someone is non-compliant Following criticism police offered justifications for the use of force in selected cases according to an LAPD after-action document on the agency s response to the UCLA encampments Examples included someone throwing a traffic cone at police or removing an officer s helmet They cannot be used totally because someone is non-compliant The summary offered several recommendations for the LAPD including proper reporting of use-of-force incidents and the need for clear commands from police leaders The description called on the police to improve communication between agencies because LAPD officers did not appear to have a clear understanding of their mission Plaintiffs in the suit include a Ph D candidate at UCLA an undergraduate trainee another college scholar and an architectural designer Police shot all three of them with rubber bullets and hit several of them in the head The police attack on the protests has had effects beyond the physical the complaint says and has caused plaintiffs to reconsider exercising their First Amendment rights to demonstrate against Israel s war on Gaza The protesters are also concerned that if they participate in future protests they ll be subject to further attacks from the state and police The encampment clearance by means of violence excessive force and kinetic force projectiles traumatized Plaintiffs chilled their protest activity and justifiably made them less willing to engage in any further Palestine-related protest activity the complaint says This was the natural consequence of the dramatic and violent clearing organized and carried out by CHP and LAPD which would have certainly chilled any ordinary person from engaging in Palestine solidarity advocacy in the future One plaintiff UCLA Ph D candidate Abdullah Puckett has become more hesitant and afraid of continuing his participation in protests the complaint stated He now feels that he must reconsider whether he can participate in protests and if so to what extent he can participate He now fears that he will experience violent retaliation at the hands of law enforcement if he participates in protests UCLA Gaza Crackdown Police arrested more than people as a consequence of the UCLA encampment The LAPD which had a billion budget last year sought more than half a million dollars in reimbursement from the governor s office for the response in part for more than overtime hours the Daily Bruin released How are they supposed to go back to campus and feel safe Arrested students wound up with criminal records Those records are now being used by the Trump administration to target students for abduction and deportation For international students that may have been arrested at any of these encampments they then had that on their record which led to the Trump administration running background checks on international students stated Sergienko the lawyer And if they had gotten arrested at an encampment that got flagged and could be subject to deportation under Trump s fascist policies California s Democratic lawmakers are now pushing for a bill that amounts to an educational gag order targeting ethnic studies classes over concerns about antisemitism That s another attack on speech coming from the blue state the liberal paradise of California Sergienko revealed A real question is how are students supposed to feel safe on campus knowing that the administration would call in a thousand school shooters to come attack them while on campus Sergienko disclosed How are they supposed to go back to campus and feel safe On Wednesday night UCLA students evidenced The Encampments a documentary circulated earlier this year The school called in the LAPD to break up the screening Police arrested three students The post UCLA Gaza Protesters Sue Cops for Shooting Them in the Head With Rubber Bullets appeared first on The Intercept