. . . until things get fatally violent. Then, "who could have seen this coming!!"

Last night I watched our local Los Angeles channel show the clash between pro Palestine protestors and outsiders. The right to protest peacefully is a constitutional right. The outsiders were dressed in black and aggressively try to tear down the site and fought with the pro Palestinian students. They seemed older. One carried an Israel flag. There was no talk. These people were going to destroy the pro Palestinian site. One person who said he was a UCLA student said he was tired of destruction to our campus. The campus belongs to the state of California. If the state of California through their representatives want them to be removed, it is up to them. If you want to protest against them go and speak out against them. It is not your job to dismantle their site and fight them. The right to protest peacefully is a constitutional right and we have representatives and police to take care of the pro Palestinian people and site should they be called upon.

I am a UCLA alum. I am disgusted that someone would spray paint "FREE GAZA" on UCLA's historic Royce Hall. This does not help Palestinians in any way. I can't imagine a student doing that, especially one who worked their whole life for the grades to get in this incredibly selective university. You don't suppose the vandals were outsiders?

I can very easily see that a student would spray-paint that. It is an unoffensive slogan.

I marvel at the idea that a student would never stoop to inoffensive graffiti on a subject they're passionate about.

You're trying to defend the indefensible.

If it's a symbol of UCLA, then it probably was a student. LOL at a city with buildings under 100 years old being precious about them.

And no, I don't think it was a student. The median GPA to get in is a 4.57. https://admission.ucla.edu/apply/freshman/freshman-profile/2023

Nobody who worked their whole life to get a perfect GPA like that in order to get into UCLA would shit on UCLA like that. Or be that stooopid.

Defend the vandals?

just saying it's a trivial misdemeanour - on a few spaces on a large public building. There seems to be a great need for smelling salts around here today.

Historic, according to Oxford, means "famous or important in history." There is no age minimum. But regardless, Royce Hall was built in 1929 and is close to 100 years old, the enduring symbol of UCLA. George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and Ella Fitzgerald performed there.  Albert Einstein and John F. Kennedy spoke there.

It's ridiculously disrespectful to spray paint it. And it will not be easy to remove the graffiti from the 100 year old brick work without damaging it. They will no doubt have to hire experts to restore it and will cost well over the $400 threshold to make it a felony, not a misdemeanor.

That is felony vandalism.

California Penal Code § 594 PC defines the crime of vandalism as maliciously damaging, destroying or defacing someone else's property. Vandalism is a misdemeanor if the amount of damage is less than $400.00. But the charge can be a felony if the damage is $400.00 or greater.

The estimate of their cumulative vandalism was over $300,000.

My last project with brick is painted in Prosoco Blok-Guard to 20' above the ground to stop taggers. It adds significant cost.

I hope UCLA was proactive in protecting Royce Hall.

Trivial misdemeanor, my ass

[link:

Are the DU fainting couches full, yet?

Most people understand the dictionary definition of a "few"

BFD.. It's still Historic from 1937.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royce_Hall#Renovation

It seems as though some of the students there are capable of Vandalsem.

They're Not helping Gazans though with their Smearing of Royce Hall.

Free he Hostages

Aloha

UCLA has said students who failed to leave before the encampment was cleared would face punishment up to and including expulsion, staff would face termination and off-campus people would be charged criminally. Seems actions do have consequences.

Alumni and disgusted.

It doesn't work to have protests without leadership.
It will be co-opted by others with other agendas
and violent idiots.

Not impressed with any of this.

Seems like they don't want accountability for their actions.

Or how about all those times they burned down their campuses and beat each other up in protest after we sent more arms to Saudi Arabia?

Oh wait. Weird, now that I think about it I don't remember them doing that? Gee... I wonder what it is that's different about the Israelis? What could it be? I'm super confused, we are okay with giving countries, even countries in the Middle East, weapons to kill other people... but for some reason I can't put my finger on- the people of Israel are different. They're super "other" for some reason. Gosh, I guess it's just a mystery!