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NEW YORK — Violence broke out at UCLA overnight between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters, and police in riot gear arrived but did not immediately intervene.
People threw chairs and shoved and kicked one another. Some armed with sticks beat others. Before the riot police arrived, a group piled on one person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating them until others pulled them out of the scrum.
“Horrific acts of violence occurred at the encampment tonight and we immediately called law enforcement for mutual aid support,” Mary Osako, a senior UCLA official, told the campus newspaper the Daily Bruin.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass spoke to the university’s chancellor and said police would respond to the school’s request, according to a post on social media platform X from her spokesperson Zach Seidl.
The clashes took place just outside a tent encampment, where pro-Palestinian protesters erected barricades and plywood for protection — and counter-protesters tried to pull them down.
Security was tightened Tuesday at the campus after officials said there were “physical altercations” between factions of protesters.
Meanwhile, the pro-Palestinian demonstration that paralyzed Columbia University ended in dramatic fashion, with police carrying riot shields bursting into a building that protesters took over the previous night and making dozens of arrests. On the other side of the country, clashes broke out early Wednesday between dueling groups at the University of California, Los Angeles.
New York City officers entered Columbia’s campus late Tuesday after the university requested help, according to a statement released by a spokesperson. A tent encampment on the school’s grounds was cleared, along with Hamilton Hall where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a second-floor window.
Protesters calling on the Ivy League university to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the war in Gaza seized the hall about 20 hours…
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