LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MAY 01: California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers patrol at a pro-Palestinian encampment, the morning after it was attacked by counter-protestors at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, on May 1, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. A group of counter-protestors attacked the camp overnight leaving some demonstrators wounded. The camp was declared ‘unlawful’ by the university yesterday and classes have been cancelled today due to the violence. Pro-Palestinian encampments have sprung up at college campuses around the country with some protestors calling for schools to divest from Israeli interests amid the ongoing war in Gaza. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The Office of Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday criticized law enforcement's slow response to violent brawls that broke out between pro-Palestinian protesters and counter demonstrators on the UCLA campus Tuesday night.
“The limited and delayed campus law enforcement response at UCLA last night was unacceptable – and it demands answers,” a spokesperson from the Governor's Office said Wednesday. “As soon as it became clear that the state assistance was needed to support a local response, our office immediately deployed CHP personnel to campus," the statement added.
Newsom also released a separate statement, condemning violence at UCLA Tuesday night.
Wednesday’s statement was Newsom’s first public reaction to the growing campus protests since the signs of violence and unrest were initially shown at the USC campus a week prior.
Get Southern California news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC LA newsletters.
When the chaotic melee started at UCLA among protesters and counter protesters at around 10:45 p.m. Tuesday, law enforcement officials did not appear to be present at UCLA’s Royce Quad.
“Where is the security? We don’t see them here,” NBC Los Angeles’ Robert Kovacik said during his live report Tuesday as a number of fights were breaking out before his eyes.
Felicia Ford, a concerned resident of Los Angeles, said some of the people involved in the brawls appeared to be armed.
“They were using bars, bats,” Felicia Ford described. “Some people had knives. Some people had weapons.”
Ford also said when she called the LAPD to request police response to UCLA at around midnight, she was told that LAPD officers could not be dispatched because they “had not been called by campus police.”
The LAPD and LA County Sheriff’s Department did not confirm with NBC Los Angeles when their officials were dispatched to the campus. The CHP said its officers were sent to UCLA by 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Newsom added the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services has been providing law enforcement support statewide, including “responding for assistance at UCLA throughout the night and early morning.”
Mayor Karen Bass, who was in Washington D.C. to lobby the Biden Administration and members of Congress to expand veteran eligibility for housing vouchers, was said to be cutting her trip short to return to Los Angeles and respond to the escalating campus violence.
“The violence unfolding this evening at UCLA is absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable. LAPD has arrived on campus,” Bass said in a statement released Wednesday
