Over 1,000 gather at UCLA to protest Thursday
By Sam Catanzaro
Thousands gathered at UCLA Thursday protesting police brutality and also the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of Jackie Robinson Stadium as a booking area for arrested demonstrators.
Protestors gathered outside UCLA’s Royce Hall around 1 p.m., displaying signs and chanting the names of black individuals killed by police. Around 2 p.m. the crowd began marching towards the UCLA Police Department station.
These protests come days after news broke that the LAPD had been using UCLA’s Jackie Robinson Stadium–located on the West Los Angeles VA–to book hundreds of demonstrators.
UCLA officials condemned this move in a statement from Chancellor Gene Block, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Emily Carter, Administrative Vice Chancellor Michael Beck and Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Jerry Kang, saying the university was “outraged”.
“This was a violation. To see a space that’s so special to UCLA, particularly one dedicated to an iconic figure like Robinson, used as a place for punishing those who carry on his legacy is profoundly upsetting. The truth is that for many in our community, deeply anxious about police brutality and abuse of government power, that was deeply troubling. We understand and respect that. We failed to recognize these challenges in an inclusive manner that heard marginalized voices,” reads the statement. “Especially disturbing are reports that in the midst of a pandemic, which has already disproportionately harmed communities of color, the arrests on Monday were handled in a way that violated Los Angeles County’s own guidelines on physical distancing and face coverings.”
The LAPD in a statement acknowledged that the location was a poor choice in retrospect while citing a high number of arrests as the reason behind the Department’s decision.
“The demonstrations planned for the Westwood area occurred with relatively few issues. However, by Monday evening the Department experienced a significant surge in nighttime curfew arrests necessitating the provisioning of additional space in which to process and release curfew violators. Citywide the number of arrests exceeded 1200 individuals which far surpassed the Department’s capacity. The Department identified the stadium as a location for a field jail, to process arrestees for immediate release,” the LAPD said. “We regret that we did not inform UCLA of this intended purpose. In retrospect it was an unfortunate decision to establish this site processing arrestees. We also should have sought an alternate location given the stadium’s namesake of Jackie Robinson, who broke major league baseball’s color barrier as the first African American baseball player. The location was a poor choice given his legacy and the spirit of the protests.”
According to UCLA, the University has instructed the LAPD that it may not use any property UCLA owns or leases for the purpose of processing arrests and staging.
“To be clear: This was a violation. To see a space that’s so special to UCLA, particularly one dedicated to an iconic figure like Robinson, used as a place for punishing those who carry on his legacy is profoundly upsetting,” UCLA said.
For years, UCLA has leased Jackie Robinson Stadium on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. According to the University, City agencies have typically asked for permission as a lessee to allow them to use the parking lot in emergency situations, including as a Los Angeles Fire Department staging site during recent wildfires and as a COVID-19 testing site. In this case, UCLA says the LAPD sought and received similar permissions from the VA to use the stadium parking lot as a staging area,
“We knew [this] about and failed to stop [it]. We were never informed that it would also be used to process arrests. But allowing the LAPD to use the space even for staging during these recent protests was a mistake,” UCLA said.
