Over 200 pro-Palestine demonstrators were arrested at UCLA early Thursday morning, but most of them will likely be charged with misdemeanors, not felonies, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said.
“I’m being told that probably almost all of them will be handled by the L.A. City Attorney,” Gascón told KNX News Chief Correspondent Charles Feldman.
All misdemeanor cases in the city of L.A. are handled by the city attorney’s office. If any cases are passed off to the D.A.’s office, Gascón said his team will review them, but he predicts that “very, very few” will meet the threshold for a felony prosecution.
“LAPD made multiple arrests at USC a few days ago, and out of all those cases, only one case came to us,” he said. “And in that case, the filing deputy felt that there was not enough for a felony.”
He said that based on videos from the scene, most of the arrests made at UCLA were probably for failure to disperse, trespassing, or “maybe some misdemeanor batteries.” He also noted that there was “other behavior” that hasn’t led to arrests yet, likely referring to the violent attacks by counter-protesters on Tuesday night.
“The one thing we are discussing internally is to make sure that people understand that, you know, everybody has a constitutional right to express their views, but they do not have a constitutional right to harm others or to destroy property,” Gascón said. “And to that extent, if the case comes our way, we will make sure that people are held accountable according to their behavior and their past history.”
According to the Associated Press, more than 2,000 protesters have been arrested at 36 schools across the nation in the past two weeks.
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