{"id":3152,"date":"2025-03-20T21:57:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T21:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=3152"},"modified":"2025-03-20T21:57:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T21:57:15","slug":"victims-of-ucla-mob-attack-sue-to-hold-the-aggressors-accountable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=3152","title":{"rendered":"Victims of UCLA Mob Attack Sue to \u201cHold the Aggressors Accountable\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"


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In late April<\/span> 2024, a mob attacked a pro-Palestinian student encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles. Police and campus security stood by and watched the assault for nearly five hours before intervening. Pleas to university officials went nowhere. And the next day police returned, only to violently and unlawfully clear the encampment and arrest protesters. These are the allegations of a group of students and faculty who are suing the people they blame for the attack, law enforcement agencies, and university officials for violating their civil rights.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, comes as the federal government deploys all of its might to restrict speech on Palestine in the name of eradicating antisemitism on college campuses. The Trump administration has begun arresting and revoking the visas of students and scholars over their advocacy for Palestine. It has also launched a Department of Justice investigation<\/a> into the University of California system for allowing \u201can Antisemitic hostile work environment to exist on its campuses.\u201d And this week, the DOJ threw its support behind two Jewish students who are suing UCLA for alleged antisemitism, accusing the school of trying to avoid responsibility in the case, according to legal filings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The sprawling 96-page complaint, which identifies 20 alleged members of the mob by name, accuses university officials and police of violating their civil rights, carrying out unlawful arrests, firing less lethal munitions at protesters at close range without just cause, as well as negligence for failing to protect students and faculty from violence in late April. Plaintiffs said the mob incident followed a series of \u201cphysical attacks, threats of violence, and harassment\u201d against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students on or near campus throughout the school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe events at UCLA highlight systemic anti-Palestinian bias and the administration\u2019s failure to uphold its obligation to protect the rights of students and faculty to engage in peaceful protest and expression,\u201d the complaint said. \u201cThis action seeks to hold UCLA accountable for its failure to address and prevent Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab discrimination, its violation of civil rights of all pro-Palestinian protesters \u2014 a group comprised of a wide range of people including Jewish people \u2014 and to demand systemic changes to ensure the safety and equity of all members of the university community.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s really important to know UCLA did nothing to stop them on that night.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

The complaint alleges in stark terms the violence that the school allowed against protesters, said attorney Thomas Harvey, who is working on the suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this notion, broadly speaking, in the media, that there\u2019s some kind of violence from the pro-Palestinian protesters,\u201d Harvey said. \u201cIn this case, it\u2019s four-plus hours of unmitigated violence is coming from the counter-protesters, whose problem is pro-Palestinian or anti-genocide speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were multiple police agencies present, but none stopped the attacks on protesters, Harvey added. Officers from the University of California Police Department, Los Angeles Police Department, California Highway Patrol, and private security were present, he said, but none intervened. \u201cIt\u2019s really important to know UCLA did nothing to stop them on that night.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Amid a wave<\/span> of university protests<\/a> in solidarity <\/a>with Palestine, UCLA students set up the encampment in front of Royce Hall in late April to amplify their demands for the school to stop investing in companies and institutions that fund or profit off of Israel\u2019s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The encampment organizers also hosted talks and education sessions featuring professors and journalists.<\/p>\n

In the days leading up to the attack, Zionist counter-protesters began to disrupt the protest, attempting to break in and sabotage the encampment and setting up a jumbotron and speakers to play on loop the Israeli song \u201cMeni Mamtera<\/a>,\u201d a children\u2019s tune used by the Israeli military to torture Palestinian captives, the complaint said. When they arrived on the night of April 30, some of the counter-protesters carried fireworks and chemical agents, the plaintiffs allege.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit, the 32 plaintiffs \u2014 a group that includes students, faculty, journalists, legal observers, and community members who showed up in solidarity with the encampment \u2014 detail the specific moments in which they allege members of the mob punched, swung metal rods and wooden boards, aimed and shot fireworks, sprayed chemical agents, harassed and sexually assaulted plaintiffs, as campus law enforcement and security stood by. Others recalled the aggressive tactics used by police to dismantle the encampment. Plaintiffs recounted physical injuries, such as broken bones, nerve damage, and bruises. Some were diagnosed from post-traumatic stress disorder and their mental health continues to be affected by the incident, the complaint said.<\/p>\n

Among them was Thistle Boosinger, a Taiko drum instructor and lifelong resident of Los Angeles who had grown up visiting UCLA for its museums, sports games, community events, and is a patient of its hospital system. She joined the encampment in solidarity with the demands of students and had volunteered to help hand out masks and other supplies to protesters. During the attack, a member of the mob repeatedly hit Boosinger\u2019s hand with a metal rod, shattering her bones and severing a nerve in her ring finger, the complaint said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her injuries required three unsuccessful surgeries, as she continues to experience reduced mobility and strength in her hand, Boosinger alleges. Due to her injuries, she can no longer teach music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a right to protest safely and make my voice heard,\u201d Boosinger told The Intercept, \u201cAnd because of events that transpired with aggressors attacking the encampment \u2014 which up until that point was incredibly peaceful and beautiful and inspiring on the inside \u2014 because of damages that I sustained emotionally and physically, I felt that it was necessary to hold the aggressors accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graeme Blair, a political science professor at UCLA and plaintiff in the suit, said he hopes that during the litigation process attorneys will be able to find more information on who led, organized, and possibly funded the mob attacks on protesters and plan to amend the complaint as more alleged actors are identified.<\/p>\n

Blair was among the faculty members who had volunteered to keep watch at the encampment after students put a call out to professors for help. He arrived on April 30, just as the mob started its violent attack, in which he was sprayed by chemical agents, according to the complaint. He and other faculty immediately sounded the alarm to school officials, including then-Chancellor Gene Block, who, according to Blair, said police were called and that he could do no more. As TV news stations broadcast the attacks, police stood by watching the violence unfold without intervening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was standing just a few feet from these people who were throwing metal barricades and punching and kicking and using their spray and tear gas, and had been shooting fireworks,\u201d Blair recalled to The Intercept. \u201cAnd it was just a surreal scene because the California Highway Patrol was standing, you know, 100 feet away in a formation and weren\u2019t advancing.\u201d<\/p>\n

When police returned on May 2 and began their sweep of the encampment, faculty had formed a human chain around the students. Blair was among the first of dozens to be arrested. In this roundup, officers fired less-lethal munitions at students and struck their legs, the complaint said.<\/p>\n

Police again responded to a UCLA encampment with violence on June 10. In one instance, officers shot a protester in the chest with a less-lethal munition, within 10 feet. The student sustained a heart and lung injury, causing him to cough up blood and to be hospitalized, the complaint said.<\/p>\n

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