None of the 64 protesters arrested at the University of California, San Diego, last spring after police tore down a large pro-Palestinian encampment will face criminal charges, the San Diego City Attorney’s Office said Thursday.
The decision followed “a months-long review by the City Attorney’s Office of substantial body-worn camera footage and all other available evidence” from the clashes that roiled the campus May 6, according to a statement issued by the office.
“As prosecutors, we must conclude that we can prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt before we file charges,” it says. “This is an ethical mandate. When we receive a case from law enforcement, we review the strength of the evidence, the harm caused by the offense, and the totality of the circumstances.”
The early morning police raid prompted skirmishes with hundreds of people supporting the demonstrators’ protest against Israel’s war in Gaza, and marked the first such confrontation between police and protesters on the La Jolla campus in decades.
Of the 64 people arrested that day, 59 were UC San Diego students, and two others were faculty members, the City Attorney’s Office said Thursday.
The office noted that attorneys for the students had identified “possible evidentiary challenges” that they used to defend their clients in school administrative hearings and that would likely be raised in criminal proceedings as well.
Still, Thursday’s announcement from city prosecutors came with a caveat: No one is in the clear yet.
That’s because the statute of limitations gives prosecutors a year after arrest to bring charges. “If arrestees engage in unlawful activity in the future, we will consider that conduct along with their involvement in this encampment,” the statement reads.
Encampments sprang up at college campuses nationwide last spring as students protested the war in Gaza. At UC San Diego, demonstrators set up camp near the iconic Geisel Library, demanding the university divest from Israel.
Within a few days, the protest encampment grew to about 50 tents. Tensions rose May 5 when a couple hundred counter-protesters showed up, but the standoff ended peacefully.
As protesters slept early May 6, police in riot gear descended, ordering everyone to clear out and arresting those who stayed. Hundreds of supporters of the encampment soon showed up, and dozens soon got into shoving matches with police. More clashes followed as police tried to take people to jail.
All were hauled off on Sheriff’s Department buses to San Diego Central Jail, where they were booked and immediately released. Most were arrested on suspicion of unlawful assembly, although several were also taken into custody on suspicion of illegal camping or resisting arrest, jail logs indicated.
In a public message soon after the raid, UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said there were “significant dangers” at the encampment, saying police had found stakes, propane tanks, metal and plywood shields, spray cans and a sword.
On Thursday, the City Attorney’s office said it was concerned “that the community has not received accurate information about this Office’s review of the UCSD cases. Here, no one was arrested for violence or possession of any illegal substances or weapons, nor were those arrested identified as having harassed or threatened anyone.”
Aside from criminal charges, UCSD students arrested that morning also have also faced potential consequences through the school’s student-conduct hearing process.
The school declined to address the process Thursday. “Because of student privacy laws, the university cannot comment on specific disciplinary cases,” a spokesperson said.
Attorney Annie Rios is coordinating the defense of the student protesters as their cases work through the school’s disciplinary hearings. She said 20 or so students have completed the process, and all received similar sanctions: a year of probation, a course on practical decision-making and at least 15 hours of community service.
Some of the students hit by sanctions have graduated, she said, but for those still at UCSD, the probation serves “as a really chilling, silencing effect.”
Rios, a civil rights and defense attorney, said all of the students she is working with opted to take their case through the process rather than settling at an early stage, choosing their right to due process. “These students are enormously courageous and have done so much work in their own defense,” she said.
The tensions that rocked the campus in May have largely subsided.
Earlier this month, on the anniversary of the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel that sparked the war, about 120 members of the Jewish community held a vigil outside of Geisel. Hours later, about 300 pro-Palestinian demonstrators held a peaceful vigil in the same spot.
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