Pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA carry fake corpses, clash with police

FILE PHOTO: Police in riot gear arrest Pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA last month. Protesters again attempted to establish an encampment on the UCLA campus on Monday, June 10, prompting a rapid police response.

LOS ANGELES – A large group of pro-Palestinian protesters, who held a funeral-procession-like march across the UCLA campus while carrying fake corpses, clashed with police on Monday.

Some of the demonstrators carried what looked like dismembered bodies before gathering around a plaza  fountain outside of Royce Hall and dumping red food coloring into the water.

As protesters marched, one of them read aloud names of Palestinians killed in the Israel-Hamas war. “They will not die in vain,” protesters chanted after each name, according to the LA Times. “They will be redeemed.”

In their Instagram post, Students for Justice in Palestine, UCLA, invited the public to join them “to bear witness to over 46,000 Palestinians who have been martyred or buried under the rubble.”

“Palestinians under occupation continue to remind us that funerals are places of protest,” they said. “The Palestinian people continually remind us that grief and rage are actionable; our grief is not one that debilitates us, but rather it is our driving force.”

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The protesters again attempted to establish an encampment on the UCLA campus, prompting a rapid police response and declaration of an unlawful assembly before the group dismantled their tents and walked out of the area.

Associate professor Graeme Blair, who is a member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine, told the LA Times one student went to the hospital for treatment of wounds from a rubber bullet, which he said was fired when students were in the camp near Dodd Hall.

Protesters at one point stood in formation at the top of the Janss Steps that lead into the plaza to prevent people from entering. Some makeshift barricades were also assembled.

University police and campus security officers were quick to respond to the area and used bicycles in an effort to prevent more protesters from entering the area. A UCPD officer told the Daily Bruin campus newspaper that the gathering had already been declared an unlawful assembly by shortly after 4 p.m.

The Los Angeles Police Department briefly declared a citywide tactical alert, enable the agency to keep officers on duty beyond their normal shifts.

Shortly before 6 p.m., university police gave protesters 10 minutes to disperse, telling them they would face arrest if they did not leave the area. The protesters quickly complied. The group dismantled their tents and removed other materials from the plaza, and walked down the Janss Steps and headed out of the area.  (With CNS report)

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