Two people were detained at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus last night, April 30, during an attempted screening of the new documentary The Encampments (2025), according to local reports and a university statement. Videos posted on social media show dozens of university police officers storming the campus in full riot gear at around 9pm as a group was gathering for the unofficial screening, hosted by the school’s suspended Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter.
The independent student-run community news platform Poppy Press reported that one of the two individuals detained during the screening shutdown was taken to the emergency room for injuries. Hyperallergic was unable to independently verify this or whether the two people detained were UCLA students.
Some videos of the incident.
https://nitter.tiekoetter.com/SJPatUCLA/status/1917817727554838723#m
https://nitter.tiekoetter.com/dailybruin/status/1917806471649321270#m
The campus group SJP is currently suspended on campus, assuredly for a justifiable reason. And being suspended, they can’t reserve any spaces, so they just tried to take over a quad. Admin got wind of the event and closed that quad, so they reassembled on a separate site with a white sheet and Bluetooth speaker/projector.
So yes, they were completelty justified in storming the group of people watching a movie off basically off their phones with 60 riot police, as it was an unpermitted assembly, violated the campuses time and place policy, and the group itself already being suspended for hurting the feelings of a foreign country.
Doesn’t matter though, free publicity for the movie and I assume it will be available to stream when Watermelon+ (yes, that’s a real streaming service) launches next week. They will have to storm peoples dorm rooms next to stop them from seeing this dangerous film
Yeah, this is gonna trigger a Streisand Effect