Demonstrators breached a security barrier meant to keep opposing protest groups apart on UCLA’s campus on Sunday and the two sides came face-to-face, at times screaming at one another and shoving back and forth.
A CNN team was on the ground watching the crowd, where pro-Palestinian demonstrators had gathered to support an encampment protesting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, and a group of counter-protesters draped in Israeli flags had erected a video screen and speaker set up.
“Very high passions on both sides, and when these two come together we have seen confrontations,” CNN’s Camila Bernal reported from the campus.
“People who are screaming at each other, sometimes shoving and pushing, and it does get violent at times.”
Organizers from each group told Bernal that they were trying to keep the peace.
The CNN team had seen police officers in riot gear standing at a distance from the crowd, but university officials said police would not intervene unless they felt students were in harm’s way.
The school’s vice chancellor for strategic communications, Mary Osako, confirmed that demonstrators had “breached” a barrier between the groups and that there were “physical altercations” between protesters.
“UCLA has a long history of being a place of peaceful protest, and we are heartbroken about the violence that broke out,” she said.
