Crews cleanup pro-Palestinian encampment after protest at UCLA
Heavy equipment moved onto UCLA campus Thursday morning to cleanup a pro-Palestinian encampment after a weeklong protest was put to an end.
Protesters were given a dismissal notice on Wednesday, May 1, at 6 p.m. after authorities declared the encampment an "unlawful assembly" and ordered demonstrators to leave the area.
After a nearly 9-hour standoff with protesters refusing to leave, officers in riot gear advanced on the encampment around 2:45 a.m. Over 200 people were arrested during the process of dispersing the large crowd, according to UCLA police.
It was unknown how many protesters were inside the encampment walls, although reports from the scene indicated the number was over 1,000. The number of tents in the camp also grew to more than 100 over the past week.
It was also unclear how many of the protesters were actually UCLA students or affiliated with the university.
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Cleanup crews moved into the area after the encampment was cleared of protesters and began removing all the material from the former encampment.
Officers and dozens of volunteers worked together, taking away barricades, tents, plywood and other trash that littered Royce Quad.
SkyCal flew over the scene and large bulldozers and forklifts could be seen removing the aftermath of the week-long encampment built on campus.
The clearing of the encampment gave a broader picture of the amount of damage done to the campus. The front of Royce Hall and Powell Library suffered extensive graffiti damage, some of it profane.
Campus security was also on hand, amid fears that additional protesters might return to the scene and try to re-establish the encampment.