By The Vanguard Staff
LOS ANGELES, CA – A man was arrested last week after an alleged assault of demonstrators at a UCLA anti-war rally opposing the killing of civilians in Gaza.
According to The Guardian, in a late April violent attack, “a group of masked people marched on to the campus at night and attacked a Gaza solidarity encampment. They threw fireworks, beat students, and attacked staff and student journalists while law enforcement and campus-hired security guards failed to intervene for hours.”
The attack, added The Guardian, led to fierce criticism of the university, and the campus police department.
The man, 18, was arrested on a felony charge and is being held in a Los Angeles jail on $30,000 bail, according to jail records.
The man was first identified by CNN, whose videos, said The Guardian, “appear” to show the young man—CNN reported he is a high school senior—wearing a white mask and hoodie throwing objects into the encampment and attacking peaceful activists in the camp with a wooden pole.
The Guardian said CNN “reported that his mother had bragged about his role in the attack on Facebook, but later denied that he had been present.”
UCLA police said in a statement to media outlets it had used some of the videos shared by media in the investigation, noting officers “conducted an investigation that included interviewing victims, speaking with witnesses, and reviewing security camera footage and publicly available videos from members of the public and the media.”
The Guardian wrote, “UCLA continues to grapple with the protests and their aftermath. Police dismantled the pro-Palestinian encampment following the violent attack and arrested hundreds of people.
“Protesters established a new encampment…as the UCLA chancellor joined other campus leaders to testify before Congress about the demonstrations – which police quickly cleared.”
House Republicans, added The Guardian, “clashed with the president of Northwestern University over his handling of a protest community, but largely spared UCLA’s chancellor, Gene Block.
“Ilhan Omar, the progressive Minnesota representative,” reported The Guardian, was critical of Block and said he could have prevented the violent attack on protesters,” and charged, “You should be ashamed for letting a peaceful protest gathering get hijacked by an angry mob.”
