Anti-Israel protesters at Cal State L.A. who took over a campus building that includes the office of the university’s president left the building early Thursday, leaving behind “significant damage.”
The protesters barricaded themselves inside the Student Services Building on Wednesday afternoon, smashed windows, vandalized it with red paint, and tagged windows with graffiti, including messages such as “Free Gaza” and “We See the Blood on your Hands,” according to California media reports. They blocked entrances and exits to the building with overturned tables and umbrellas, tarps, overturned golf carts, and furniture and copy machines from inside the building.
Several administrators were stranded on an upper floor for at least a couple of hours.
Most of the protesters left voluntarily early Thursday, and the rest left after receiving a dispersal order from police, Erik Hollins, a campus spokesman, told the Los Angeles Times. University staffers who had remained in the building also left on Thursday morning.
Hollins told the paper there was “significant damage” to the first four floors of the building.
The paper reported that a couple of hours after the protesters took over the building, school officials identified an exit allowing employees to leave. But about a dozen university staffers, including the school’s new president, Berenecea Johnson Eanes, stayed in the building voluntarily “to manage the situation,” Hollins said.
Hollins told the Times that 50 to 100 protesters were involved. Police are investigating the area as a crime scene, Hollins said.
A “Protest Action Alert” message at the top of the school’s website directed people to stay away from the main campus. “All classes and operations on main campus will be held remotely until further notice,” the alert says.
For about six weeks, anti-Israel protesters have been camped out in another area of campus. Members of the so-called Gaza Solidarity Encampment emailed the university on Wednesday indicating that they were engaging in a sit-in at the Student Services Building.
Hollins told the Times that the university had worked hard to provide space for peaceful, nonviolent protest. “Unfortunately, this action went in a different direction,” he said.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to note that the protesters who took over the Cal State L.A. Student Services Building on Wednesday left early Thursday.