CHP justifies use of force at UCLA Gaza protests without providing evidence

A newly launched report from the California Freeway Patrol asserts that its officers acted correctly when firing practically 60 rounds of “much less deadly” rounds at pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA in early May, nevertheless it doesn’t present proof to again up the declare.

The one-page report mentioned officers have been “met with assaultive resistance” that included “a number of protesters throwing gadgets, similar to frozen water bottles, bottles containing urine and different unknown fluids, full 12 oz soda cans, items of plywood, wood poles, and varied sized hearth extinguishers.”

A CalMatters review of footage from the protests discovered officers geared toward folks’s heads and fired into crowds. State regulation and coaching tips prohibit these actions, besides when there’s a “menace to life or severe bodily harm.”

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Demonstrators conflict at a pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA early Wednesday, Could 1, 2024, in Los Angeles. Dueling teams of protesters have clashed on the College of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and utilizing sticks to beat each other. (AP Picture/Ethan Swope)

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In response, CHP Director of Communications Jamie Espresso mentioned that officers did certainly face a menace from protesters. Nevertheless, protesters don’t seem to assault or threaten the CHP officers within the movies recorded by CalMatters. No battery or assault prices have been introduced in opposition to protesters.

By regulation, CHP needed to put together a report on using pressure and file it with the Division of Justice. The brand new CHP report echoed what Espresso mentioned in Could. The company additionally denied firing discriminately into crowds.

“This doesn’t construct public belief. The place is the proof?” mentioned Jeff Wenninger, a former Los Angeles Police Division lieutenant who oversaw use of pressure investigations. “They’re sharing their opinion on what occurred however not explaining the rationale of how they acquired there.”

Wenninger mentioned the report doesn’t handle all the factors it’s purported to below the regulation, noting that CHP doesn’t cite something to corroborate their declare that protesters have been threatening lives or severe bodily harm. He referred to as the report “nothing greater than boilerplate.”

Wenninger was one in every of two regulation enforcement specialists who reviewed the footage for CalMatters. He mentioned he didn’t see proof of a menace to life or severe bodily harm, and criticized an officer for improperly firing various bean bag rounds in succession right into a crowd. “Bag rounds are meant for a single goal, used for a person engaged in a violent act, not indiscriminately right into a crowd,” he mentioned.

The report additionally put numbers to the officers’ use of pressure: it says that officers fired 33 beanbags rounds and two dozen 40mm sponge rounds at pro-Palestinian protestors whereas clearing a UCLA encampment. The company mentioned it deployed 240 to disperse the encampment of 800 protestors.

Lorena Gonzalez, who as an assemblymember authored the 2021 invoice that strictly restricted officers’ use of “much less deadly” munitions, has referred to as the police actions “a complete coaching failure by CHP” in response to CalMatters’ reporting.

“Our invoice was a primary try to make sure that crowd management in protests didn’t lead to pointless and harsh accidents,” mentioned Gonzalez, who now heads the California Labor Federation. “It appears to me at first look that the coaching that the CHP deployed to those officers wasn’t adequate, as a result of it seems that there are each violations of the regulation and the violations of the spirit of regulation.”

Initially Printed: July 26, 2024 at 12:41 p.m.