“The Cops Brought Guns”: Sights and Sounds from the UCLA Liberated Zone

Personal reflection and account of the popular defense of the Palestine solidarity encampment at UCLA in the face of attacks by far-Right supporters of Israel and law enforcement. To hear a podcast interview on this subject, go here.

Photo by Shay Horse

APR 30. 11:45 PM There are a couple of constant stimuli that bombard you when you reach the encampment – through the backline, past the lower quad, and up the stairs; beyond these stairs a barricade, holding the front lines of the encampment together with road signs, metal barriers, and wooden boards. This barricade splits the encampment into two distinct zones of lower risk (before the barricade, including the stairwell, the greens at either end, and the lower quad down below) and higher risk (beyond it, on the upper quad). 

These sounds and symbols mark the movement with a reverberant ostinato. The first sounds immediately apparent as I walk up the campus steps are the throes of hundreds of voices, impressions which on any other day would be sports fans miles in the distance, but are released instead from the strained bodies of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators only a couple of feet beyond the barricaded stairtop. These demonstrators were students, medics, faculty, friends, parents, community members and leaders. Watching – without participating, either presently or from the safety of campus buildings – were UCLA campus safety, multiple city and state police departments, and school administrators, damned into historical records as actors who intentionally put their students in the line of fire. Perched upon Royce Hall are two snipers, with a view of the inner encampment.

Well into the next morning, the screams encouraged the other several hundred students guarding the barricade to remain steadfast, repel any instigators, and hold the line. Then there are the calls for medics, frequent and piercing. Students were often rushed out of the side entrance bloodied, confused, or drenched in pepper spray, and sent off for triage. Just as my group arrived, we witnessed a small string of students being escorted out of the camp with bloody heads. 

A group of students, no older than undergrad age, emerge crying as others gather to pour water down their faces. There, they are recognized by their friends, in utter dismay at their condition, feigning whatever confidence they have left to coax their friends into calm, to open their eyes for the water to wash out the poison. Here is the city of LA, once again leading the charge in showing that the full might of the imperial core can be mobilized to oppress dissent, as it did in 2020 after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, as it did in 2014 in Oakland after the murder of Michael Brown, as it did in 1992 after the beating of Rodney King, in 1965 after the arrest of Marquette Frye, in 1943 with the Bracero program, etc…, a pattern starting with the inception of the state in 1851 through the genocide of indigenous peoples.  

A sign, bearing the word “divest!” in fluorescent orange, sits tucked away beneath the hedges at the barricade end of the greens. Beyond the barricade, at the top of the stairs, the demonstrators faced chemical, psychological, and physical violence from Zionist mobs that had gathered with the intent to destroy the encampment. Throughout the life of the camp, the pro-Palestinian protestors were subject to beatings, chemical irritant attacks, firework artillery, doxxing, assaults from rods or planks of wood, one incident of biological violence in a mice attack, and psychological violence in the form of music torture. On this night, they faced bout after bout of physical brutality from the Zionists as the riot-clad police watched – onsite – for hours, before deciding to clear the area of counter-protestors in the early hours of the morning. I sat, with others, at the back line (walking between the main stairway entrance and the smaller entrance flanking the encampment on the greens north of the stairs) watching as the violence unfolded. 

The choppy rumble of the police helicopters holding formation above the school; the drone flying up and around the base of the Liberated Zone, eyeing all the people who populate it. I wondered what the LA police would use my face for, what data point they had just gleaned from me. Could they see me from their cockpit (pigpit?), kissed by the Beverly skyline? 50 layers of masks and black bloc could not have made me feel any less peered into, could not have reinforced my face against the beam coming from that helicopter lantern. I’m sure if they could find a way to make light kill you they would. 

Six minutes East of this scene, the Beverly Hills Plaza Hotel stands undisturbed, Rodeo Dr. the pearl of LA bourgeoisie. Flanked on the West, the Getty sits atop Brentwood as a beacon of cultural heritage. The Hills disappeared, folded, tucked away into the liberated land, as if the sky itself descended onto campus to protest, closing down the heavens in the process. 

“Is anyone here a surgeon?” Miraculously, after a beat, one appeared. I would see them in and about the camp as the night progressed. The absence of the sounds of alarms, beepers, and life support systems; not a thousand feet away, the UCLA hospital profits from attending to the injuries of students protesting on its university campus. By the time my group arrived at the barricade, at least 25 students had been sent to the hospital.

We had found use in shuttling supplies up the camp, as well as sussing out bad actors and asking them to leave. A majority of our duties for the next hour and a half included escorting agitators out of the encampment. 

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May 1, 2 AM Every thirty seconds or so, the safety team would call for wanted and unwanted supplies as droves of (what were mostly) students poured in with water, masks, food, and swim goggles. The speaker had long since found a working cadence:

“We’re on lockdown! We’re on lockdown, so we’re not letting anyone else in. If you also want to contribute, there’s always here [pause] you can always contribute here. [long pause] For supplies, we’re taking medical supplies, water, no milk!, goggles, umbrellas, saline water, ooh no clothes, no food!”

Every couple minutes for the last few hours, sirens ring out from beyond the school perimeter, somewhere before the school extends into the city proper. They seemingly serve two functions: to the protestors, they create an air of confusion; they cement this place as a place of criminality, instead of a peaceful enactment upon citizens’ unalienable First Amendment rights; they signal to protestors that police might be coming for them, the sirens hiding in the distance in police-cruiser fatigues. To those who are not protesting, perhaps city folk, university residents, or passersby, it establishes the area as one with an unsafe presence. Even if you’re clued into the whole act it works well to unnerve you and deter those on the fence. What these sirens don’t tell you is that the students here endured a siege from Zionist forces that left them battered and bloody; these students endured war, assisted by Israeli private security, funded by Zionist donors, and encouraged by city and state government and law enforcement at the behest of University of California system executives. 

Students get as far up the stairs as they can before meeting someone close to the encampment which stops them, and then collects their supplies to pass upward in a long chain from the middle of the stairs to the encampment barricade at the top.

“If you’re giving supplies, we need goggles, make sure they’re out of their packaging; we need umbrellas, make sure that’s out of its packaging,” a group of students walks by with jugs of milk – “we’re not taking milk!”

Several 2-liter milk jugs line the benches leading up to the stairwell. 

Every so often, someone walks through the encampment in such a way as to arouse suspicion from camp members. As if by pheromone alone, or possibly because of their gait, dress, or maskless visage, Zionist agitators were quickly identified and, by and large, escorted out of camp. Most of them came to the encampment with recording devices already rolling. 

[protestor, to a Zionist] “No pictures please.”

“Fuck you.”

Upon sighting, a camp member would ask the agitator to stop recording. If they escalate, the camp members would be quick to yell “Zionist!”; jeers and responses would amplify this call and flashlights would scramble to point out their location. Sometimes it took individual feats of logic and wit (asking an agitator who claimed to be press for their press badge, to which they were too stunned to respond and thus left); other times, it took more established protocol (umbrellas, kettling, de-escalation). The protestor, if not driven out by then, would be escorted to an exit point. As it turns out, fascist mob men love to LARP as brownshirts until you work as a team or bring out umbrellas. 

For the last few hours of the night, there have been no sounds of chants. Everyone is focused solely instead on continuing the action. It seems as if the air is too tense – the situation too dire, and yet somehow too diffuse for chants to manifest themselves. Everyone seemed to be either looking for something to do, doing it, or leaving. It’s if the collective decided not to shroud itself, its members, Brentwood, etc. from the horrors the agitators committed onto the protestors (which police and admin allowed to occur), horrors which were perfected in Gaza and imported onto domestic soil. IOF collaboration; tactical infiltration; Magen Am invited happily into command rooms. In this struggle, all the oppressed are one and the same, and we knew that in those moments. 

A group enters the encampment but is denied entry through the barricade despite having just left for supplies minutes prior. 

SOME TIME AFTER 4 AM The sounds of joy. The sounds of love. On the megaphone, the speaker announces the successful defense of the encampment as Zionist counter-protestors are evicted from camp. Cheers as the encampment celebrates holding the line for one more night.

Sleep.

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May 2, 12:00 AM There is a considerable, palpable increase in the number of protestors here tonight. Anywhere from 750-1,500 by my count outside the barricade, who knows how many inside. It is magical; and I thought yesterday was a show of force. That many more people make that much more noise: jokes between groups of friends and soon-to-be-friends; strings of people visibly and audibly looking for other strings of people; an audible buzz rings around the campus. I feel as though we are all connected.

With the influx of masses comes structural and logistical issues. Upholding a no-filming policy is harder; maintaining and communicating key, up-to-date information to the camp becomes an improbability. I hear over the megaphone something to the effect of: “We are not dispersed. We have not yet received a dispersal order here at the barricade.” There was, indeed, a dispersal order given to the entire camp hours prior. 

12:45 AM I think of the longstanding history of student protests. Throughout the nearly 800-year history of the university as a concept, it has been a moral imperative of the student body to voice its concerns through protest. It’s incredible that however much we want to escape from the issues between town and gown – however much we want to globalize our concerns – the university is dragged back into struggles of power between the university body and the citizenry surrounding the university. These cops, however, are not from around here. 

A drone again, whizzing above the encampment, flying closer and closer to our faces (the closest it got was about 50-75 feet up and away from me from my recollection).

A building sits off in the distance, illuminated by warm facade lighting, supplying a kind of violent irony that was not lost on me, its glow a strong reminder of the will of the university to maintain pretty façades, be they architectural or political. There was no pretty façade large enough to cover up these abuses of power, however; you cannot make “500 cops, two snipers suppress the rights of thousands of protestors on campus” go away with non-performative speech and red tape. 

The protest-wide no-filming guideline seems to have been lifted in favor of documenting the atrocities the police are expected to commit (or else it seems that way), as the speaker is not calling out anyone who films and neither are any other protestors. The stairwell is alive, an organism of many instruments; there’s an ebb and flow, but throughout the night the population rises steadily.

1:20 AM Terror as LAPD is seemingly invited through the back lines into the encampment. Confusion and anger manifest in the form of ardent screaming. It is only later that it is revealed that the safety team, comprised of members of UAW Local 4811, intentionally led LA officers up through the encampment. Not one minute later – flashbangs and sound bombs.

Chants.

“Peaceful protest! (Peaceful protest!)” Throngs of students – either from the top of the stairs or from the edge of the encampment past the barricade – descend toward safety. The injured arrive and are sent off to seek attention. To my surprise, another group of Zionists inside the encampment materialized beyond the main gates, sent down the main staircase.  

“UCPD, KKK, IOF they’re all the same! (UCPD, KKK, IOF they’re all the same!)”

“Off our campus! (off our campus!)”

On the megaphone, the speaker instructs the protestors; instantly, there is an audible difference in their tone and method of communication. Swift and calm as ever, they announce that students may see distressing images unfold within the next couple of minutes: mass arrests of their friends and colleagues, physical violence, and chemical attacks. What seemed like the full force of California’s finest were making their way to campus to finally use those millions of dollars of taxpayer money on the children.

“Free, free Palestine! (free, free Palestine!) Free, free, free Palestine! (free, free, free Palestine!)”

The cops have guns. There were at least 500 of them on campus, on either side of the student encampment.

AROUND 1:40 AM The camp announcer states on the megaphone to quickly regroup, focusing on building a set of human chains at the base of the stairs. We quickly bustle over to the bottom of the stairwell in an attempt to block cops entering through the lower quad from entering the encampment. As they approach from the north of the quad, they reach the base of the stairwell; we ready ourselves, mobilizing ropes of bodies, moving to stay perpendicular to the approaching corps. They come and go, largely dodging us, heading up to use the greens south of the stairwell as a ramp to the barricade. Students rush to cut the cops off, kettling them into a turtle formation at the base of the court, near student housing.

1:52-1:53 AM The softest rustling as phones slide out of phone pockets, succinctly unlocked, cameras rolling; the even louder rustling of grass as students spread through the lawn.

Chatter, within some groups. Sometimes none.

For every group of students, one or two were impromptu keepers of record. Several had their cameras set to record with the flash on, announcing their presence; others flashed lights and strobes to illuminate the phalanx, as well as to humiliate, disorient, and frighten. You could smell the cops’ desperate aggression, like a pack of starved rabid dogs.

Green guns. Black batons held like black guns so hard that they almost materialized into live ammo weaponry by sheer feat of the transformative power of capital. They definitely look as such from far away, and the cops know this.

The sound of twitchy trigger fingers, or; the sight of buzzing eyes behind a riot helmet, a palpable fear drenched in aftershave, steroids, and a 40mm hand cannon. Strobes continue to disorient. Thank god one of those losers didn’t piss his pants and unload on us. We outnumber them at least 3:1. 

“They’ve got guns.” A lone student stands directly in front of the police formation with their flash on, presumably recording, as crowds shout “cops go home!” and “peaceful protest!” for precisely one minute before –

One of those losers pisses his pants and they advance from their kettle at the bottom of the stairwell, from the southern summit of the court onto the barricaded stairwell.  This court, named the Court of Philanthropy, is named as such to commemorate the various donors who have given more than $1 million to the school, where 83 stone plates list the donor names. They look on as the police enact violent repression, in their name, securing their investments.

The eventual (why-was-it-fucking) inevitable, unmistakable sound of rubber bullets not hitting the ground.

1:53-1:56 AM Students, first in a line and now in clumps, disperse, some going home, most regrouping. “Don’t run,” a student vocalizes, and my legs feel like they have permission to return from God and fall back under my control. People steady, into an organized and purposeful pace, slightly above trotting speed.

The parking lot stairwell fills, as does the barricade once more. Sounds of discordant trotting reverberate throughout the structure. For what looks like more than a thousand people, the movement is well enough organized.

As I head out down the stairwell to our car, we watch for agitators that may be hiding in the corners. We heard from other members earlier that Zionist counter-protestors were waiting for people to return to their cars to attempt to assault them. We make it to our car and head off to regroup.   

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*The following is recollected from press footage, as well as anonymous accounts from others in my immediate protest group.* 

BEFORE 2:20 AM The unthinkable happens. Cheer, love, and sweat coagulate in a once-in-a-lifetime moment of unmistakable joy: mere minutes after the failed pincer, the cops were evicted from the UCLA Liberated Zone. The sounds of boots were silenced by the many yawps and yells for celebration, though this seemed to be short-lived. 2:20 AM I received a ping on my phone from friends inside the encampment, wide-eyed, they had witnessed a miracle.

BEFORE 4 AM The police forces seemed to return quicker, and in higher numbers less than an hour thereafter. 

An unconscionable amount of flashbangs all at once, in the air, intended to stun and harm as many as possible.

In the car, I see on my social media a video of the cops at the encampment: “… for your safety, for your safety” an officer bellows, as he and his gang of cops pelt students with rubber. 

The sound of 5 heads meeting a rubber bullet with courage and strength.

WELL AFTER 5 AM The sound of at least 130 arrests.

The all-too-familiar sound of tents being ripped up, the cops’ arms twitching, bending in a way that has become muscle memory. A switchblade slides through nylon fabric with precision, a feat of infinitesimal moral character done over and over to the houseless daily, found here today hiding behind on-the-spot revisions of campus code. I wonder what the scene looked like from the cops’ cell phone cameras as they began to take selfies around the plastic rubble; I wonder: do the IOF do the same?– but I don’t have to, as the similarities between the IOF and CHP/UCPD/LAPD/LASD are long and deep, even into their respective forms of post-terrorism ritual. Of course, they do. They just can’t help document their crimes, like giddy schoolchildren, like the giddy schoolchildren that once existed in Palestine. 

Free Palestine, long live the student intifada.

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