A conflict between police and pro-Palestinian protesters at UC Irvine now consists of the mayors of Irvine and Newport Seaside.
After his metropolis’s police division responded to a request for mutual help on the Orange County campus Wednesday, Newport Seaside Mayor Will O’Neill took umbrage with a social media put up by Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan, who requested the school administration to keep away from a “violent state of affairs” with the protests.
The scene performed out similarly to different pro-Palestinian demonstrations on faculty campuses throughout the nation, with police in riot gear clashing with student protesters.
The UC Irvine administration put out a name for police businesses from throughout Orange County to hitch the Irvine Police Division and the Orange County Sheriff’s Division “as protesters swarmed the campus becoming a member of a bunch of protesters who had established an encampment on the campus,” the college stated Wednesday afternoon in an emergency bulletin.
Khan, who took the mayoral workplace in 2020, wrote in a post on the social media platform X that it was “a disgrace that peaceable free speech protests are at all times responded to with violence. Taking house on campus or in a constructing just isn’t a risk to anybody.”
The college’s “management should do every little thing they’ll to keep away from making a violent state of affairs right here. These are your college students w/ zero weapons,” Khan stated.
Khan, a Democrat elected to the Metropolis Council in 2018, is the primary Muslim lady to carry the Irvine mayor’s workplace.
Her feedback drew a swift response from O’Neill, who accused her of “careless wording.” The put up, O’Neill stated on X, “makes it seem that you’re preemptively accusing our officers, and officers from the various legislation enforcement businesses who responded, of violence.”
“If that’s what you meant, then your message is beneath the workplace of Mayor. If it’s not, then make clear instantly,” stated O’Neill, a Republican who’s at present serving in his second time period as Newport Seaside’s mayor.
O’Neill stated in an emailed assertion to The Instances on Thursday that Khan’s “preemptive insult” to the police businesses who responded to the request for legislation enforcement on campus was “reckless and ill-advised.”
He’s requested for clarification or an apology to the Newport Seaside Police Division, however stated he hasn’t heard from the town of Irvine.
“Her phrases, although, is not going to cease the Newport Seaside Police Division from offering mutual help to the great residents of Irvine within the occasion that help is required once more,” O’Neill stated. “Our Newport Seaside Police Division solutions the decision, and I’m happy with them.”
Khan didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
The actions at UC Irvine started round 2:30 p.m. Wednesday amid protesters’ calling on the college to divest from firms with ties to Israel. The campus introduced in a social media put up {that a} group of protesters had entered a lecture corridor, with the constructing takeover broadcast over Instagram. Protesters hung indicators that learn, “UC Divest from genocide,” whereas others erected a barricade with picket pallets.
Law enforcement officials moved into the campus Wednesday night armed with nonlethal projectile launchers and ripped down the makeshift boundaries and encampments.
The college, which moved courses on-line Thursday, reported that fifty folks have been arrested.
