After President Trump invaded Venezuela and deposed President Nicolás Maduro Friday night, the Bay Area reacted fast, as protests took over both San Francisco and San Jose by Saturday afternoon.

The big international news this weekend was Donald Trump’s invasion of Venezuela and capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Friday night. The whole canard is being sold as fighting narcoterrorism, but Trump pretty much gave away the game Saturday when he said, "We're going to have our very large U.S. oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money."

Needless to say, by Saturday, protests were breaking out across the Bay Area.

Mission Local reports that about 400 protesters took to Market Street in SF on Saturday, and made their way to the Civic Center statue of renowned South American revolutionary Simón Bolívar. “No more coups, no more wars, Latin America isn’t yours!,” protesters reportedly chanted at the San Francisco rally. Meanwhile in San Jose, KPIX reports there was also a protest of the Venezuelan invasion in that city.

An estimated 80 Venezuelans were killed in Friday night's invasion. “We saw them destroy the very fundamental rights that all Latin American countries and all countries of the world share,” Palestinian Youth Movement member Omar Khoury said in a speech, per Mission Local.

International law experts generally agree that Trump's invasion was illegal.

Though one thing you may not have seen much at SF's Saturday protest of the Venezuelan invasion was, well, Venezuelans. Mission Local spoke to one unidentified Venezuelan protester, and reports "She went to the rally today after hearing about it, hoping to see other Venezuelan people, but relatively few were there and none spoke at the rally."

“I was like, I want to see my people and hug them, and I want to tell them everything is going to be okay,” that woman told Mission Local. “Then I encounter these people that are a little fed with lies also.” (The speakers were often sympathetic to the deposed dictator Maduro.)

The protest aggregator site IndyBay does not list any additional upcoming protests this week on the military action in Venezuela, though they do have a bunch more photos from Saturday's SF protests.

Related: Hundreds Rally In SF to Protest Trump’s Bomb Strikes on Iran [SFist]

Image: CoffeeStax via Reddit

The Charlie Kirk traveling memorial show had its stop in Berkeley Monday night, and one guy hawking Jesus t-shirts got bloodied up in a lone fistfight, though it was otherwise a long night of garden-variety Berkeley rabble-rousing.

We raised the alarm last week that the Charlie Kirk homage “Turning Point USA Tour” was coming to Berkeley Monday night, the last stop on the tour, and the first California stop since Kirk was shot and killed on an Utah college campus in September. And given Kirk’s legacy of promoting right-wing violence and bigotry, there were of course flyers posted around the UC Berkeley campus telling people to show up and raise heck in protest of the event.

Some of them even got an early start. The UC Berkeley student newspaper Daily Cal reports that four UC Berkeley students were arrested for vandalism early Monday morning, for the crime of… attempting to hang a giant cardboard insect on a gate? Those protesters apparently also hung flyers using Kirk’s own quotes against him, quotes like “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously.” Though the Turning Point rally itself inside Zellerbach Hall was not a particularly star-studded event, merely featuring the likes of washed-up comic Rob Schneider, and some other guy who is even less famous than Rob Schneider.

But once the rally was actually getting started, KPIX reports there was a fistfight between a protester and a Charlie Kirk supporter outside of the auditorium before the program. They got some footage from on the street of the scene after that fistfight, footage in which it is very funny how reporters and protesters are simply wandering into the stalled traffic outside the event. KPIX said they "confirmed four arrests" with the Berkeley PD and campus police. Meanwhile, organizers say they sold 1,900 tickets, and it appears there were roughly the same number of protesters outside the event complaining about it.

KTVU has a little more of the fistfight video above, and it appears to be the same incident caught in much more detail in the (way too long) video below. There’s some bearded guy selling Jesus t-shirts, and declaring, “Jesus Christ is Lord, Jesus Christ is the messiah.” At just past the two-minute mark of the video, some fellow appears to come along and knock a bunch of his red t-shirts to the ground. The two get into a fistfight (though the fighter may not be the guy who knocked the shirts down). Police rush in to detain the two, and everyone gets their cameras out, but the fight does not spread beyond these two individuals.

The Berkeley Scanner has the additional detail that the anti-Charlie Kirk fistfighter was  25-year-old Jihad Dphrepaulezz, who was arrested on suspicion of robbery and felony battery. That outlet adds that “authorities said he attacked a vendor selling Charlie Kirk merchandise and snatched a chain from around his neck.” That report also notes that the t-shirt vendor (seen bloodied up below) was arrested too, though he was released with no charges and sent for treatment at Alta Bates Hospital.

The UC Berkeley Police Department had some extra presence out, Turning Point USA had their own bolstered security, and per KPIX, a few SF Sheriff’s Office deputies were pulled in for security too. An SF Standard reporter on the scene noted that outside Zellerbach Hall, there were “fireworks, bottles thrown, police holding the line and helicopters circling above.”

Though according to KPIX, “a spokesperson for the event said things inside the hall went off without a hitch.”

Maybe not so much after the event, as the Berkeley Scanner additionally reports that the protesters stayed to give event attendees a hard time on their way out. The protesters reportedly shouted things like "What's it like to be remembered as a misogynistic, racist enabler by your grandchildren?” and per the Berkeley Scanner, “Others flipped off event-goers and shook their fists, booing and yelling ‘get outta here’ as attendees walked across Sproul Plaza toward Telegraph Avenue at about 9 pm."

The Berkeley Scanner adds, "The protest was small by Berkeley standards."

Indeed this was the case. The national right-wing media is trying to sensationalize this event as “Bloody chaos at UC Berkeley after Antifa storms TPUSA event,” though only one guy got bloodied, and he was clearly there to start shit. On a Berkeley protest scale of one to ten, this was a three at best. Heck, I’ve been to Berkeley protests where people smashed windows and graffitied all over buildings, and nothing of that sort happened Monday night.

In other words, this was just a normal Berkeley night of unrest. People came out specifically to provoke one another, they did exactly that, and a couple-few people spent the night in the hoosegow. Otherwise, everyone seemed to just go home at 9 pm.

Update: The Department of Justice is now investigating the protest events!

Related: Charlie Kirk’s Memorial-Rally Road Show Coming to Berkeley on November 10 [SFist]

Image: @FrontlinesTPUSA via Twitter

Somewhere between 200 and 300 people demonstrated at the Embarcadero Sunday afternoon in protest of the US airstrikes against Iran, with many saying Trump is committing war crimes.

After Saturday’s US airstrikes on three suspected Iranian nuclear sites, it’s still unclear how much damage those strikes did to Iran’s nuclear program. And Iran did indeed retaliate, sending missiles at a US military base in Qatar early Monday, and there are continuing concerns over Iran’s possible retaliation via closing the Strait of Hormuz, or with proxy attacks by terrorist sleeper cells. So despite whatever Trump says, the situation is very unpredictable.

Though in a development that was predictable, there was a protest against the US bombing of Iran on Sunday at the Embarcadero, according to the Chronicle. The Chronicle described the protest as a “crowd of about 300 people,” while KQED estimated it as "about 200 people.”

The protest was organized by the ANSWER Coalition, an umbrella group of several antiwar organizations that also organized protests this weekend in several other US cities. They argue that the US attacks violate the UN Charter, the US Constitution, and international law. “Trump lied during the campaign when he said he was going to end the ‘forever wars’ and bring about peace,” the ANSWER Coalition said in a statement before Sunday’s protest. “He is no different from George W. Bush who lied about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to initiate the catastrophic war in Iraq.”

“It’s putting everyone in the world at threat of something nuclear [coming] out of this,” Palestinian Youth Movement’s Bay Area chapter member Suzanne Ali told KQED. “It’s World War III.”

There was some degree of counterprotest. The Chronicle adds that “a smaller group of demonstrators” rallied in support of the attacks and to call for Iranian regime change.

According to KQED, the ANSWER Coalition is also organizing a “national march on Washington” this Saturday, June 28. It’s unclear if they have another Bay Area protest planned, given that Saturday is also in the middle of SF Pride Weekend.

Related: US Launches Airstrikes on Three Iranian Nuclear Sites as Middle East Tensions Escalate [SFist]

Image: @ehsan46888480 via Twitter

In a protest that had little or nothing to do with Donald Trump, dozens of pro-union protesters managed to shout down and shut down Tuesday's SF Board of Supervisors meeting, in a demonstration against Mayor Lurie’ proposed budget cuts and layoffs.  

It is a very normal thing at any given weekly SF Board of Supervisors meeting that some group, often with coordinated matching signs and t-shirts, holds some sort of rally on the steps of SF City Hall before the meeting, generally because of a cause that they are upset about or a vote about to be taken by the board. But it is not normal what happened today, as unions affiliated with city public sector workers marched straight from their demonstration on the steps right up to the Board of Supervisors meeting upstairs at City Hall and shouted down the weekly meeting with chants and protests.

The protesters halted the meeting for a little over an hour, and there ended up being arrests. They were ostensibly demonstrating against Mayor Lurie’s proposed budget cuts that entail eliminating about 1,400 City Hall positions — the majority of them currently unfilled — as the city faces a roughly $800 million budget deficit.

The rabble-rousing started at about 2:15 pm Tuesday, just minutes into the meeting. Demonstrators stood and shouted “Protect public services!” as supervisors nervously chatted amongst themselves, or just tuned it out and snuck in a little work on their laptop. Meanwhile, sheriff's deputies looked on stone-faced, not seeming sure what to do.

SFGovTV continued broadcasting the meeting, though whether or not this was intentional, the sound was cut off on the broadcast. So viewers could not hear the chants, which appeared to be led by the woman with her arm in the air at the front of the crowd.

By about 2:35 pm, the board called a recess on the meeting, saying it would resume at 3 pm once the protesters’ chants had died down.

They did not die down! A minute or two after 3 pm, Board President Rafael Mandelman tried to restart the meeting, but the protesters were all still there and all still shouting. “Okay, we are back, and we are reconvening, and we are going to recess until 3:30,” a frustrated Mandelman announced.

He tried this again at 3:30, but all of the protesters were still there, all of them still shouting and chanting.

As many as 10,000 protesters jammed the streets of the Mission District Monday night in yet more public opposition to ICE actions in California, but a small splinter group hit Civic Center late at night, leading to arrests and SFPD pepper sprayings.  

San Francisco continues to raise hell over ICE actions here and ICE raids in Southern California, and President Trump’s unauthorized calling of the National Guard and now the Marines in response to protests there. (And as the Chronicle reported Monday, this is a woefully underfunded effort with guardsmen forced to sleep on cement floors in basements.) Sunday’s SF protests netted as many as 154 arrests according to media reports, setting the table for another round of protests Monday night.

Organizers told SFist that there were “more than 10,000” protesters Monday night in the Mission District, and we can say with certainty that there was definitely well north of 5,000 people out there. (The above video is just a small sliver of the crowd.) And it was largely very peaceful, albeit with a smattering of graffiti applied to McDonald’s and Wells Fargo storefronts.

But, then, as seen above, a splinter group of an estimated 80 of those protesters went window-smashing and looking for trouble near Civic Center. Mission Local reports that police pepper-sprayed that smaller group of protesters and arrested “dozens” in the after-protest, while the Chronicle says that SFPD used “less-lethal projectiles” at the Civic Center component.

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According to the Examiner, Monday's demonstrations started with some speeches on the steps of City Hall at around 4 pm.

"If you're thinking of targeting a single one of my residents in District 5 … you're going to have to come through me first,” declared Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who according to the Examiner, then shouted his own home address out loud. “If you have a bone to pick with our people, I'm right here.”

The protest then moved to Mission Street and the Mission District, swelling to the crowd of perhaps 10,000 marchers.

Among their many chants, a few stood out as the best:

• “No fear, no hate, no ICE in our state”
• “No justice, no peace. No ICE or police”
• “Up, up with immigration. Down, down with deprtation”
• (To the tune of Ludacris’s “Move Bitch”) “Move ICE, get out the way, get out the way, get out the way”

“Were going to defend immigrant rights. We’re not going to let the Trump administration or ICE or the National Guard initmidate us,” Sabina Wildman, of the protest’s co-organizer Party for Socialism and Libration, told SFist. “Ultimately, an attack againt immigrants is an attack on all workers, and we need to stay out in the streets and keep fighting for our rights.”

One demonstrator shouted into a megaphone from the back of a pick-up truck, “We say we are a sanctuary [city]. But we are not. When immigrants get shot here on the street by cops, immigrants like Alex Nieto, immigrants like Luis Gongora-Pat.”

The daylight component of the protest (6-9 pm in the Mission) appeared pretty well-liaisoned with the police, with SFPD keeping streets clear of cars for the protesters to march, and seemingly communicating with a team of protest ambassadors on which street the protest would turn onto next.

And no Waymos were torched as we saw in LA, after Waymo yanked its cars from service in the Mission District Monday night.

Though it had to be an uneasy dinner for people dining in fancy Valencia Street restaurant parklets, and as we noted yesterday, Delfina decided to close for the night to avoid any such trouble. But there were no reported incidents of diners beng harassed.

There was, however, the occasional graffiti coating of certain visible targets, and one “meter maid” patrol officer may have picked the wrong night to park their vehicle on the street.

One instance of Mission District graffiti on a Muni shelter ad would have made the Billboard Libertion Front proud.

Three Mission District storefronts took the brunt of the tagging, all other storefronts were spared. (And what has McDonald’s done to be called “Zionist?”) The Wells Fargo at Mission and 22nd streets took a large number of “ACAB” taggings, and the Vanguard Properties building at Mission and 21st was spray-painted with plenty of complaints that they were a corporate landlord.

But the McDonald’s certainly took the worst of it, with protest oganizers trying to protect any innocent bystander storefronts. This led to the very amusing scene of a guy with a Viking helmet and a hockey stick adorned with a Mexican flag doing his best to protect the McDonald’s from getting tagged. It may look like he was unsuccessful, but he prevented a heck of a lot more graffiti attempts than he allowed.

The Mission District protest ended peacefully and totally dispersed by 9:30 pm. Though then an estimated 80 protesters headed down to Civic Center, determined to start some shit that that did not manifest in the peaceful Mission protest.  

By 10 pm, police declared an unlawful assembly to be in effect at Market Street and Van Ness Avenue. As we see in the second half of the video above, police outnumber the tiny handful of protesters by a seemingly exponential margin, and on-the-ground reports say they deployed pepper spray.

The Chonicle says that some windows were smashed at the Valencia Street cafe Manny’s as the after-protesters made their way to Civic Center. SFPD said in a late-night statement that “Thousands of people participated in today’s demonsstrations, which were overwhelmingly peaceful. At the very end of the night, two small grups broke off and committed vandalism and other criminal acts. SFPD developed and coordinated a plan to detain multiple individuals who refused to comply and made arrests.”

We’ve now had two consecutive days of major SF protests. And it sure seems like these won’t be the last, and we’ll be doing this all again as the week goes on.

We’re including a slew of the better protest signs we saw Monday night below. But fair warning, many of these signs contain profanities!

Related: Gov. Gavin Newsom Says California Will Sue Trump Over Unauthorized National Guard Deployment In LA [SFist]

Images: Joe Kukura, SFist

• Victor Perez, a 17-year-old non-speaking autistic teen with cerebral palsy who was shot nine times by Idaho police was pronounced clinically brain dead and has been taken off life support. [KTVB7]
• Two underage girls were reportedly propositioned at a Petaluma park on Thursday by a 64-year-old man currently on probation in Sonoma County. [KRON4]
• New photos and video footage have been released of the fatal Cybertruck crash last Thanksgiving in Piedmont. [KRON4]

Image: Alta Plaza Park; Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Thousands of demonstrators showed up to “Hands Off” protests across the Bay Area on Saturday, and at least 1,400 nationwide, in the biggest show of resistance yet against the current administration.

Saturday’s “Hands Off” movement spanned over 1,400 protests across all 50 states, as well as internationally in cities such as London and Paris, uniting civil rights groups, labor unions, veterans, LGBTQ+ advocates, and many more. From the National Mall to small-town streets, protesters demanded federal leaders “keep hands off” essential programs and stop dismantling crucial agencies.

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The Chronicle reports that San Francisco’s Civic Center was packed with demonstrators opposing sweeping federal cuts and authoritarian overreach. Speakers including State Senator Scott Wiener were in attendance, who urged institutions to stand united rather than concede to Trump’s demands. Wiener also called for “broad-base realignment” of the Democratic Party to prevent right-wing leaders from reclaiming offices every two or four years. “Don’t bend the knee,” said Wiener.

Prior to the rally at Civic Center, demonstrators formed a human banner at Ocean Beach, forming the message, “Hands off democracy,” along with a U.S. flag.

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After the rally, more than 1,000 demonstrators reportedly headed en masse down Van Ness toward the Highway 101 entrance, which was blocked by police, chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” and encouraging passersby to join in. One protester with a bullhorn, who was later detained, jumped on top of a police car, yelling, “In the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America.”

Several hundred protesters then continued toward Bryant Street before turning up Seventh Street back to Civic Center, handing out flyers along the way and appearing to confuse a couple of Waymo cars.

In Oakland, thousands of people reportedly filled “nearly every inch” of Frank Ogawa Plaza, with signs boasting slogans such as, “This is what a dictatorship looks like,” “No kings” and “Stop the coup.” Former Oakland representative and mayoral candidate, Barbara Lee, reportedly had the crowd roaring with applause as she encouraged protesters to continue resisting and defending democracy. “Hands off Oakland, hands off California, and hands off our democracy,” said Lee, receiving enthusiastic cheers.

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Protests throughout other parts of the Bay Area also drew big crowds, including Berkeley, Alameda, and San Rafael. Mountain View’s protest featured a 2.7-mile march along El Camino Real.

According to Mercury News, an estimated 5,000 protesters rallied outside the Walnut Creek Tesla store at Broadway Plaza before marching past Nordstrom, Lululemon, and the Apple store.

Image: COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA - APRIL 5: Demonstrators participate in a Hands Off protest at the statehouse on April 5, 2025 in Columbia, South Carolina. Protests against Trump administration policies and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are being held nationwide in what organizers are calling a National Day of Action. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

The Bay Area’s latest viral video star is a woman who opened a can of whoop-ass on some young Trumper half her age after he tried to stun-gun her at a Berkeley Tesla protest Saturday.

You are likely aware that there have been protests at Tesla showrooms nationwide amidst the company’s CEO Elon Musk’s self-enriching dismantlement of the US government. And naturally, these protests are also happening in Berkeley. But this past Saturday’s Berkeley Tesla protest produced a viral video star.

When a known pro-Trump agitator disrupted the demonstration and attempted to stun-gun some of the protesters, an older woman intervened and showed him some “grandmotherly love.” And by “grandmotherly love,” we mean the kind where she grabs you by the ear and drags you across the room before whacking your knuckles with a ruler.

OK, let’s back up here. The full video of the fracas can be seen below. As the protesters are demonstrating, a man wearing all-black comes riding in on a bike, and the protestors recognize him from previous attempts to agitate them. Words are shared, and the young man in black produces a stun gun and attempts to taze a gray-haired woman. That gray-haired woman proceeds to give him the business, before throwing the youngster up against a car until police arrive to arrest him.

Berkeleyside spoke with the woman afterwards. She’s been identified as Susan Kegeles of Berkeley. She also happens to be a longtime UCSF Professor of Medicine, with a specialty in HIV prevention.

“When he tried to hurt me I wasn’t going to wait around,” Kegeles told Berkeleyside.

We have additional information from the Berkeley Scanner that the suspect is 33-year-old Ricardo Ruiz, and that he was booked on a misdemeanor charge of exhibiting a weapon other than a firearm, then released. And he is known to the Tesla protesters, because as seen in the video below, he shows up to antagonize them on a fairly regular basis.

Ruiz is clearly a fan of depicting himself as a tough-guy persona, and mocks the protesters as “all hella old-ass people.” But he will likely have trouble living down the fact that a “hella old-ass” woman twice his age beat him like a rented mule, and without even breaking a sweat.

Related: Elderly Asian Woman Attacked On Market Street Pummels Her Attacker With Stick [SFist]

Image: A. Mark Liiv via Vimeo

Yesterday‘s Noon rally at San Francisco’s Tesla showroom had another large turnout with protesters crowded around the intersection and in the center island on Van Ness Avenue. The energy was lively as participants chanted and waved to drivers who honked encouragingly, along with the occasional dog, barking in solidarity.

There was a wide range of protestors at the showroom on Saturday who were carrying out the now weekly ritual of discouraging prospective Telsa buyers from supporting Musk. A lot of older residents were in attendance who appeared to have years of protest experience under their belts.

Our favorite was a duo in berets and sunglasses waving their signs authoritatively, which read: "T-Rump Releases Musk-Turd Gas on America's Democracy" and "Resist Destruction by Musk, Vance, and Trump."

A barking dog can also be heard in some of the video footage, which inspires an idea for future Saturdays.

Dog owners: Bring your pups to the Tesla showroom and let them bark their heads off — for democracy.

Photos and videos by Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Previously: Meet The Organizer Who Turned The Tesla Showroom Into a Weekly Protest Hub

A big courtroom win for the protesters known as “the GG26” who blocked the Golden Gate Bridge with a Gaza ceasefire protest on April 15, as an SF judge has thrown out 32 of the 44 charges that DA Brooke Jenkins had brought against them.

Now more than seven months after the April 15 protests blocked the Golden Gate Bridge to urge a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, the protesters are still in the news as their case winds its way through the courts.

Back in August, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins charged 26 people with a slew of felonies including false imprisonment, saying that “hundreds of motorists were trapped on the Golden Gate Bridge and US 101, who had no choice but to remain imprisoned on the freeway for several hours.” But the felony counts brought backlash after previous bridge protesters had not faced such serious charges.

In a Friday ruling, SF Superior Court Judge Judge Brendan P. Conroy seemed to agree. KTVU reports that Judge Conroy dismissed 32 of the 44 charges against the 26 protesters, tossing out nearly 75% of all charges. According to a release from defense attorneys, “The judge also expressed an openness to reducing the charges for eight individuals from felonies to misdemeanors, and reducing restitution to a reasonable amount when the case proceeds in December.”

“Today’s decision is a huge win for our clients and the community at large,” defense attorney Jeff Wozniak said in that release. “DA Jenkins overcharged this case and that was why Judge Conroy dismissed 75 percent of the charges. The clients know their actions were just, taken to speak up for the thousands of Palestinians murdered in the past year and that the initial, overly-harsh charges were merely an effort to silence their activism.”

Though the Chronicle points out that many of the felony charges remain in place. One of the defendants facing felony charges had their case dismissed outright, leaving seven of the 26 defendants still facing felony charges of false imprisonment and conspiracy.

An arraignment for those remaining charges is scheduled for Friday, December 6 at SF Superior Court.

Related: Protests Block Golden Gate Bridge, All Northbound Lanes of 880 In Oakland [SFist]

Image: @JerseyNoahx via Twitter

Is a tent encampment really the best form of protest in San Francisco regarding the situation in Gaza? A few dozen protesters figured so on Monday, but were quickly driven off by police with something resembling rubber bullets.

The “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” phenomenon has died down for the moment here in the Bay Area, though we have seen similar large-scale efforts this week at UCLA and in Washington DC. Your Bay Area protest types attempted to form another encampment Monday afternoon at the Phillip Burton Federal Building at 450 Golden Gate Avenue, according to the Chronicle, with tents at first being strewn right on the street in the car traffic lanes.

Around a dozen tents showed up shortly after 3 pm Monday, with some on the street, while the bullhorn-wielder led chants of “Free, free Palestine.” The encampment eventually moved out of traffic and onto the sidewalk in front of the Federal Building.

At that point, some 50-80 protesters continued their chants and set up their tents on that sidewalk. But it did not take long for police to move in. (Note: The video below contains an F-bomb if you have the sound on.)

Judging by the badges, these appear to be Federal Protective Service officers and not SFPD. An apparent eyewitness claimed that “riot police shot [the protesters] with rubber bullets and pepper balls,” and indeed, these officers were certainly firing something. The protesters used tables and whatever else was at their disposal in an attempt to shield themselves.

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That said, the cops apparently won this round pretty quickly. About an hour after the above video was posted, an update from the original poster said, “all have been dispersed. Stay tuned for jail support.” Similarly, a livestream link on the rabble-rousing site IndyBay is defunct.

Per the Chronicle, “It was unclear if any arrests were made.” We will update this post if any information on arrests associated with this incident comes available.

Related: USF Starts Clearing Gaza Encampment, Protesters Mad Because They Claim They Said They’d Leave Willingly [SFist]

Image: spirit.ofthelion via Instagram

Both entrances to UC Santa Cruz were blocked Tuesday, and classes moved online, as that school becomes the latest UC campus flummoxed by the disruptions of pro-Palestine protesters.

Pro-Palestine protests have been popping up at colleges across the country over the last month-plus, but most of these universities have benefited from classes ending, and the students simply heading home for the summer. No such luck for UC Santa Cruz, where classes run through June 13, and the commencement ceremonies go through that weekend.

So, the protest headaches are just ramping up for UC Santa Cruz's administrators, and KQED reports that protesters have blocked the entrances to the campus, forcing administrators to move all classes online through Thursday.  

As seen above, this is not so much of a blockade as it is a human shield. And it must be frustrating for school leadership, as the school had just resumed in-person instruction on Tuesday after an academic strike last week. That strike was related to the violent handling of some protesters at other UC schools, and then this particular blockade popped up around 1 pm Tuesday.  

And yes, those are a whole bunch of “UAW On Strike” signs hoisted about the academic protest at UC Santa Cruz. What does the United Auto Workers have to do with any of this? Because for some reason, United Auto Workers Local 4811 represents graduate teacher assistants and researchers at UC schools. Whatever their involvement, that union's signs are all over this protest.

Either way, the school is not happy.

“Blocking entrances is unlawful and infringes on the rights of our students, faculty, and staff, who are trying to learn, teach, and go about their lives,” UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cynthia Larive said in a Tuesday statement. “From about 1-5 pm, members of our community were unable to leave campus to pick up their children, to access medical care off campus, to show up to off-campus jobs, to leave campus after an early morning shift or to come onto campus for an afternoon or evening shift.”

Larive added that the school would be “switching to remote instruction on Wednesday and Thursday.”  Similar academic strikes are also underway at UCLA and UC Davis, seemingly with more UAW signs than signs expressing support for Palestinians.

Related: Berkeley Protesters Have Broken Into and Occupied Empty Building In Renewed Pro-Palestine Protest [SFist]

Image: SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA - MAY 20: U.C. Santa Cruz workers who are union members of U.A.W. 4811, which is part of the United Auto Workers, and pro-Palestinian protesters carry signs as they demonstrate in front of the U.C. Santa Cruz campus on May 20, 2024 in Santa Cruz, California. Academic workers at the University of California, Santa Cruz walked off the job Monday morning to strike in protest of the U.C. system’s handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Organizers say the walkout will not last beyond June 30. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Just after UC Berkeley had successfully cleared the large tent encampment that was protesting the university's military- and Israel-related investments, another renegade group has occupied the school's empty Anna Head Hall, though their anti-semitic graffiti may not be helping their cause.

That UC Berkeley “Gaza solidarity” tent encampment that had grown to nearly 200 tents was just finally cleared on Tuesday afternoon, with the school making some fairly minor concessions to the demonstrators. Yet just one day after the protesters packed up their tents, a rogue, offshoot protest group occupied an empty building on the Berkeley campus Wednesday, as KTVU reports.

That building is called Anna Head Hall, which has been closed off for safety reasons since a 2022 fire, and is still boarded up and in some degree of disrepair. It is now surrounded by tents, couches, and a few Palestinian flags, with at least a couple dozen protesters inside.

According to the Daily Cal, about 30 protesters took to the building at around 3:15 pm Wednesday afternoon, and set up tents outside the building shortly thereafter.

But their anti-semitic graffiti might not help win sympathy for their cause, as images circulating on social media show a ‘Star of David equals swastika’ graffiti imagery, and the message “Zionism is Nazism.” The university says they don’t know who these protesters are, and they may not be affiliated with the previous tent encampment.

The school now considers the building to be an “active crime scene” per KTVU. The Chronicle notes that as of Thursday morning, there have been no arrests.

“We are occupying the hall because saying ‘free Palestine’ is not enough,” one unnamed protester told the Daily Cal. “You have to put action behind your words.”

In a statement KTVU, UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said, "Today is the 55th anniversary of People's Park and action was first announced on platforms controlled by People's Park activists. They are vandalizing an unsafe boarded-up, fire-damaged building next to People's Park."

Meanwhile, many of the protesters who were involved with the encampment are heading to UC Merced for the school’s Board of Regents meeting. They’re calling for the UC system to divest from companies that have provided support to Israel during the war, which the school has indicated it will not do.

Related: UC Berkeley Gaza Solidarity Encampment Grows to 175 Tents; Violence Breaks Out at UCLA Protest [SFist]

Image: Google Street View

The college campus protests sweeping the nation have of course also swept UC Berkeley, with an estimated 175 tents now pitched at Sproul Plaza — up from just a dozen last week — and classes have been canceled at UCLA today amidst an outbreak of violence at that school’s protest.

As the death toll in the Israel-Gaza conflict now approaches 35,000 killed, we are seeing protests at college campuses nationwide. Of course, campus protests are pretty much business as usual at UC Berkeley. But that school, like many others across the country, has a large-scale protester encampment set up, and people have now been camped out at Sproul Plaza for ten days. It started as about a dozen tents last Monday, but KGO reports that UC Berkeley’s “Free Palestine” encampment has now grown to an estimated 175 tents.  

Obviously, it’s unclear how many of the campers are actually university students. And in the case of UC Berkeley, which is in its final week of classes before summer break, there has not been any cancellations of classes or commencement like we’ve seen at USC. Thus far, the Berkeley protests have not caused much trouble aside from a little graffiti here and there, though Jewish students are able to request chaperones to cross the quad if they feel the need.

According to KGO, the university said in a statement, “To date, there has been no disruption of University operations. We will continue to try to respond per policy to any and all claims of illegal conduct for harassment and/or discrimination."

Though as one UC Berkeley freshman told KGO, “It's gonna suck if graduation doesn't go through but they're standing up for a good reason."

Things are far more problematic at other campuses, notably UCLA, as local station KTLA reports that violence broke out Tuesday night at UCLA's pro-Palestine encampment. That violence appears to have been the work of counter-protesters who stormed the encampment, aiming fireworks at the people camped there, and even spraying what “looked like bear spray to douse pro-Palestinian protesters,” according to KTLA.

UCLA has canceled all classes Wednesday, and has closed a couple of campus buildings for the remainder of the week.

Meanwhile, a cleanup effort is underway on the campus of Cal Poly Humboldt, where a weeklong occupation of a campus administration building led to significant damage and graffiti — and were about 35 students and staff were arrested early Tuesday morning, and the occupation was brought to an end.

Related: May Day and Gaza Protests Expected Around the Bay Area Today [SFist]

Image: @atlajala via Twitter