An anti-Israel student protester at the University of California, Irvine gave a brief interview to a local TV reporter while being arrested — before being hauled away by cops who were called in to clear out the school’s encampment.
“We’re protesting genocide,” the student told Fox 11 while surrounded by a crowd of cops.
“They have suspended several of our students,” the protestor said of the school.
“They have halted negotiations with us by suspending several of our students.”
Before either the student or reporter could get another word in, cops yanked the keffiyeh-wearing demonstrator away from the camera.
That protestor was just one of about 50 who were arrested at UCI on Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles Times, after demonstrators barricaded themselves inside a campus building and refused orders to leave.
In addition to students, numerous people claiming to be members of faculty were also arrested at the demonstration.
“These Police officers out here today, that’s thousands of students’ scholarships. Thousands of students could have been able to go to school and have books and have housing,” wailed one woman to ABC 7, claiming to be a professor.
“But instead our chancellor, who is a very cruel man, decided to send thousands of dollars worth of state funding paid for by the taxpayers into the trash,” she said, referring to the police response to the scene.
There were about 200 officers dispatched to the protest, the LA Times reported, and footage from the scene showed them battering down encampment tents as they broke up the protest.
The scene even escalated into a small spat between the Irvine Mayor Farrah N. Khan and the mayor of nearby Newport Beach, Will O’Neill.
“It’s a shame that peaceful free speech protests are always responded to with violence. Taking space on campus or in a building is not a threat to anyone,” Mayor Khan wrote in a post on X.
O’Neill viewed that post as a callous indictment of his own officers, who had been sent over to help with the protest after he said Irvine explicitly asked for them.
“Your careless wording makes it appear that you are preemptively accusing our officers, and officers from the many law enforcement agencies who responded, of violence,” O’Neill said.
“If that’s what you meant, then your message is beneath the office of Mayor. If it is not, then clarify immediately.”
