LOS ANGELES — Nearly a month after counterprotesters attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, police made their first arrest, detaining an 18-year-old who is not a student or in any way affiliated with the school , officials said. Friday.
UCLA has not identified the suspect, but online jail records show that 18-year-old Edan On was arrested by UCLA police at 8:46 a.m. Thursday at a Beverly Hills business and jailed on $30,000 bail.
Last week, CNN identified On as a Beverly Hills high school student seen in videos wearing a white mask and white hoodie hitting a pro-Palestinian protester with a wooden pole during the April 30 attack on the campus encampment.
Counter-protesters threw traffic cones, unleashed pepper spray and threw live mice into the encampment, sparking clashes that lasted for hours before police intervened and drew criticism from Muslim students and political leaders. Police said at least 15 people were injured, although pro-Palestinian supporters estimated the number was closer to 25.
UCLA officials have said the attack involved “a group of instigators.”
“During that violence, one person was seen on video attacking the residents of the camp with a wooden pole, causing at least one victim to suffer serious injuries,” the university said in its statement on Friday, adding that the suspect had been booked into the police UCLA for misdemeanor assault. assault with a deadly weapon.
On’s mother wrote in Hebrew in a now-deleted Facebook post that “Edan went on to bully the Palestinian students in the tents at UCLA” and included an image of the person in the white hoodie that was broadcast on local news, CNN reported. The outlet said his mother confirmed to CNN that the man in the video was her son, although she later said he denied working at UCLA.
Neither On nor his mother could be reached by The Associated Press.
On Thursday, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, one of the leaders of three universities called to testify at a Congressional hearing on the wave of campus protests over Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, expressed regret over the way the school handled the attack on the encampment.
“Tragically, it took several hours for police to quell the violence,” Block said. “In retrospect, we should have been prepared to immediately remove the encampment if and when the safety of our community was threatened.”
The night after the attack, hundreds of police officers from various agencies poured onto campus and dismantled the encampment. On Wednesday, UCLA’s police chief was reassigned “pending an investigation into our security processes,” according to a statement from the school.
Protesters tried to set up a new encampment at UCLA on Thursday, but left when ordered to disperse. A crowd of protesters marched elsewhere on campus, and a small group later staged a sit-in in a building before officers moved them away.
The arrest followed an investigation that included interviews with victims and witnesses, as well as reviews of security camera footage and publicly available videos from the public and news media.
The statement said university police are investigating all reported acts of violence related to protest or counter-protest activities since April 25.