By Rich McKay
(Reuters) – Los Angeles police cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Southern California without making arrests on Sunday following turmoil at universities across the United States over the Israel-Hamas war.
Various U.S. universities with graduation ceremonies being held on Sunday braced for potential protests after dozens of people were arrested on campuses the previous day.
After USC requested assistance, police officers entered the encampment at about 5 a.m. local time (1200 GMT) and worked with the university’s Department of Public Safety to remove tents as dozens of student demonstrators peacefully left the area, police said.
USC President Carol Folt said in a statement “the occupation was spiraling in a dangerous direction over the last several days,” leading her to call for police intervention. She said the camp was cleared peacefully, with no arrests, in 64 minutes.
Los Angeles police also said in a statement there were “no arrests, no use of force, and no injuries to officers or protesters.”
In an intervention at USC last month, police arrested 93 people without incident as demonstrators surrendered without resistance.
The experience at USC stood in contrast to confrontations at other campuses where the protests have emerged as a political flashpoint during a contentious U.S. election year as Democratic President Joe Biden seeks a second term in office.
Police have arrested more than 2,000 people during protests at dozens of campuses around the country.
Across town at UCLA, where pro-Israeli demonstrators clashed with students last week in a pro-Palestinian encampment, and where police arrested more than 200 people in clearing the encampment a day later, Chancellor Gene Block on Sunday announced the creation of a new Office of Campus Safety and appointed a leader, former Sacramento police chief Rick Braziel, who will report directly to Block.
“Our campus has been shaken by events that have disturbed this sense of safety and strained trust within our community,” Block said in a statement announcing the appointment.
The unrest led Democratic U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders to compare campus protests to those against the Vietnam War that contributed to Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to seek re-election in 1968. “This may be Biden’s Vietnam,” Sanders said.
Mitch Landrieu, the national co-chair for Biden’s re-election campaign, on Sunday pushed back against that comparison, calling it “an over-exaggeration.”
“However, that is not to say that this is not a very serious matter,” Landrieu said on CNN.
Under mounting political pressure, Biden on Thursday broke his silence on the campus unrest over the war in Gaza, saying Americans have the right to demonstrate but not to unleash violence.
Many colleges, including Columbia University in New York City, have called in police to quell protests.
At the University of Texas in Austin on Sunday, drones deployed by police circled overhead as about 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied, with about 50 onlookers, local media reported. The speakers advised fellow demonstrators to remain peaceful and not engage the police.
Students and other protesters have called upon universities to divest their financial ties to Israel and push for a ceasefire in Gaza.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military operations in Gaza, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave. The war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and abducting 252 others, of whom 133 are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
(This story has been refiled to fix the spelling of Los Angeles in paragraph 5)
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; additional reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California, and Emily Rose in Jerusalem; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Will Dunham, Deepa Babington and Andrea Ricci)
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