Video footage that appears to show federal immigration agents using their vehicle to ram into the truck of an immigrant rights activist has sparked controversy and public outrage in the city of Oxnard, an agricultural town that has been the frequent target of immigration raids.
At the center of the controversy is a claim by federal agents that the activist was the aggressor, ramming into the agents’ vehicle.
The incident began shortly before 8 a.m. Thursday when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents notified the Oxnard Police Department that their vehicle had been rammed by a civilian’s vehicle near the intersection of 8th and A streets, according to Sgt. Martin Cook.
“We responded, and ICE agents detained an individual, and a crowd started to gather,” Cook said. “We were there to keep the peace and prevent any type of altercation with ICE or any other federal agency.”
Cook said that federal agencies took control of the investigation. He did not know if the person arrested by agents requested a police report and referred all questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees several agencies including ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
VC Defensa, an immigrant rights group that has been documenting immigration raids in the region, said on Instagram that one of its volunteers, whom the group identified as Leo Martinez, had been arrested.
The group also released video footage taken by eyewitnesses that they said showed that the allegation by federal agents against Martinez was false.
“ICE intentionally struck Leo’s truck and blocked his exit while Leo was exercising his right to observe ICE activity,” the group stated in one of its Instagram posts.
The video starts with a Jeep Cherokee with tinted windows tailing a dark gray truck before ramming into the passenger door on the driver’s side. The driver of the truck then pulls into a dirt lot, where the group says Martinez was arrested.
“This shameful escalation by ICE is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate those of conscience who are standing up against Trump’s assault on immigrants,” the group said on Instagram. “We will not be deterred, and we will continue to keep our communities safe.”
The incident is the latest controversy involving federal immigration agents that has not only sparked outrage among activists and residents but also raised questions about some of the claims agents previously have made.
Two months ago, federal immigration officers stopped Francisco Longoria in San Bernardino. During the encounter, Longoria, who was in his truck with his 18-year-old son and 23-year-old son-in-law, said he feared for their safety after masked officers shattered his car window, then he drove off and an officer fired several rounds at the truck.
Department of Homeland Security officials have said officers were injured during the encounter when Longoria tried to “run them down,” prompting one officer to “discharge his firearm in self-defense.”
In June, Arturo Hermosillo was accused of ramming his van against a federal agent’s vehicle when he was instructed by the agents to move his van back to make room for an ambulance for a woman who had been injured during an immigration sweep.
Hermosillo was reversing when he said a federal agent standing near the vehicle pushed in his side view mirror, blocking his view; Hermosillo subsequently bumped into a vehicle behind him. Shortly after, agents pulled him out of the van.
Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin told The Times in an email at the time that a person “rammed his vehicle into a law enforcement vehicle” during the June 19 operation
“CBP Agents were also assaulted during the operation and verbally harassed,” she said.
Videos of that day did not capture any assaults; they showed residents yelling at agents.
The incident in Oxnard mirrors a level of aggression by federal agents seen on the streets of Chicago.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment from The Times. In a statement to CNN, however, DHS said that claims that agency is using “harsher approaches” are “smearing” federal agents who “put their lives on the line every day to enforce the law.”
In downtown Los Angeles on Thursday, just outside of the Metropolitan Detention Center where a crowd had gathered with “Free Leo Now!” and “ICE out of L.A.” signs, they listened to Martinez as he thanked them for their support and their work.
“I knew I didn’ t do anything f— wrong; that’s why they released me with pending charges,” he told the crowd. “That’s what they do with pretty much a lot of our volunteers cause we didn’t do s— wrong.
“They smashed into me,” he continued as people clapped. “And then they tried to accuse me of assaulting them, what kind of bulls— is that?”
Activist Dwight C. Wells was killed outside his restaurant, Winning and Won Turkey Legs in Liberty City, on Friday night while playing dominoes, police said.
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The mother of anti-violence advocate Dwight C. Wells is speaking out days after her activist son was shot and killed while he was playing dominoes outside his Miami restaurant.
Those who knew the 40-year-old Wells describe him as a God-fearing man who served his community in countless ways. He dedicated his life to helping the city and fought to help kids stay out of trouble through his “Bikes Up, Guns Down” movement, which brings awareness to gun violence in the City of Miami.
Earlier Sunday afternoon, dozens of people on bikes and quads gathered outside Winning And Won Turkey Legs, Wells’ Liberty City restaurant, to honor him.
Wells was well-known in the community for his advocacy against gun violence, often helping families who lost loved ones who were shot and killed across Miami by putting together vigils and community events to spread awareness.
According to Miami Police, Wells was outside his restaurant playing dominoes on Friday night when someone came up and shot him. He was rushed to the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he died. Police are still searching for the suspect.
CBS News Miami caught up with Wells’ mother earlier Sunday and asked her what her message was to his shooter.
“You just killed a praying woman’s son and you killed a son who prays himself. He loved God, he shared people — he shared God with people everywhere,” said Mary Brown, Wells’ mother. “Listen shooter: When they catch you, I’m coming to court if God allows it. I want to hug you. I want to kiss you if the judge allows it. I want to tell you [that] you should repent for your sins because you have a choice for good or evil.”
There will be a vigil outside of Wells’ restaurant on Thursday night at 7 p.m. to honor his life. Police are asking anyone who knows anything to come forward and tipsters can remain anonymous.
A Georgia judge on Tuesday said he will toss the racketeering charges against all 61 defendants accused of a years-long conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility that critics pejoratively call “Cop City.”Fulton County Judge Kevin Farmer said he does not believe Republican Attorney General Chris Carr had the authority to secure the 2023 indictments under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or RICO. Experts believe it was the largest criminal racketeering case ever filed against protesters in U.S. history.The defendants faced a wide variety of allegations — everything from throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers, to supplying food to protesters who were camped in the woods and passing out fliers against a state trooper who had fatally shot a protester. Each defendant faced up to 20 years in prison on the RICO charges.Farmer said during a hearing that Carr needed Gov. Brian Kemp’s permission to pursue the case instead of the local district attorney. Prosecutors earlier conceded that they did not obtain any such order.“It would have been real easy to just ask the governor, ‘Let me do this, give me a letter,’” Farmer said. “The steps just weren’t followed.”The case is not over yetFive of the 61 defendants were also indicted on charges of domestic terrorism and first-degree arson connected to a 2023 “night of rage” in which masked activists burned a police car in downtown Atlanta and threw rocks at a skyscraper that houses the Atlanta Police Foundation. Farmer said Carr also didn’t have the authority to pursue the arson charge, though he believes the domestic terrorism charge can stand.Farmer said he plans to file a formal order soon and is not sure whether he would quash the entire indictment or let the domestic terrorism charge proceed.Deputy Attorney General John Fowler told Farmer that he believes the judge’s decision is “wholly incorrect.”Carr plans to “appeal immediately,” spokesperson Kara Murray said.“The Attorney General will continue the fight against domestic terrorists and violent criminals who want to destroy life and property,” she said.Defense attorney Don Samuel said the case was rife with errors. Defense attorneys had expected to spend the whole week going through dozens of dismissal motions that had been filed. During an impassioned speech on Monday, the first day of the hearing, Samuel called the case “an assault on the right of people to protest” and urged Farmer to “put a stop to this.”“We could have spun the wheel and seen which argument was going to win first,” Samuel told The Associated Press after Farmer announced his decision from the bench.The long-brewing controversy over the training center erupted in January 2023 after state troopers who were part of a sweep of the South River Forest killed an activist, known as “Tortuguita,” who authorities said had fired at them while inside a tent near the construction site. A prosecutor found the troopers’ actions “objectively reasonable,” though Tortuguita’s family has filed a lawsuit, saying the 26-year-old’s hands were in the air and that troopers used excessive force when they initially fired pepper balls into the tent.Numerous protests ensued, with masked vandals sometimes attacking police vehicles and construction equipment to stall the project and intimidate contractors into backing out. Opponents also pursued civic paths to halt the facility, including packing City Council meetings and leading a massive referendum effort that got tied up in the courts.Carr, who is running for governor, had pursued the case, with Kemp hailing it as an important step to combat “out-of-state radicals that threaten the safety of our citizens and law enforcement.”But critics had decried the indictment as a politically motivated, heavy-handed attempt to quash the movement against the 85-acre project that ultimately cost more than $115 million.Environmentalists and anti-police activists were unitedEmerging in the wake of the 2020 racial justice protests, the “Stop Cop City” movement gained nationwide recognition as it united anarchists, environmental activists and anti-police protesters against the sprawling training center, which was being built in a wooded area that was ultimately razed in DeKalb County.Activists argued that uprooting acres of trees for the facility would exacerbate environmental damage in a flood-prone, majority-Black area while serving as an expensive staging ground for militarized officers to be trained in quelling social movements.The training center, a priority of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, opened earlier this year, despite years of protests and millions in cost overruns, some of it due to the damage protesters caused, and police officials’ needs to bolster 24/7 security around the facility.But over the past two years, the case had been bogged down in procedural issues, with none of the defendants going to trial. Farmer and the case’s previous judge, Fulton County Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams, had earlier been critical of prosecutors’ approach to the case, with Adams saying the prosecution had committed “gross negligence” by allowing privileged attorney-client emails to be included among a giant cache of evidence that was shared between investigators and dozens of defense attorneys.As the delays continued, defendants said their lives had been wrecked by the charges, with many unable to secure steady jobs or housing.Three of the defendants, organizers of a bail fund that supported the protesters, had also been charged with 15 counts of money laundering, but prosecutors dropped those charges last year.Prosecutors had previously apologized to the court for various delays and missteps, but lamented the difficulty of handling such a sprawling case, though Farmer pointed out that it was prosecutors who decided to bring this “61-person elephant” to court in the first place.Defense attorney Xavier de Janon said Farmer’s decision is a “victory,” but noted that there are other defendants still facing unindicted domestic terrorism charges in DeKalb County, as well as numerous pending misdemeanors connected to the movement.“The prosecutions haven’t ended against this movement, and I hope that people continue to pay attention to how the state is dealing with protests and activism, because it hasn’t ended,” de Janon said. “This is a win, and hopefully many more will come.”
ATLANTA —
A Georgia judge on Tuesday said he will toss the racketeering charges against all 61 defendants accused of a years-long conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility that critics pejoratively call “Cop City.”
Fulton County Judge Kevin Farmer said he does not believe Republican Attorney General Chris Carr had the authority to secure the 2023 indictments under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or RICO. Experts believe it was the largest criminal racketeering case ever filed against protesters in U.S. history.
The defendants faced a wide variety of allegations — everything from throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers, to supplying food to protesters who were camped in the woods and passing out fliers against a state trooper who had fatally shot a protester. Each defendant faced up to 20 years in prison on the RICO charges.
Farmer said during a hearing that Carr needed Gov. Brian Kemp’s permission to pursue the case instead of the local district attorney. Prosecutors earlier conceded that they did not obtain any such order.
“It would have been real easy to just ask the governor, ‘Let me do this, give me a letter,’” Farmer said. “The steps just weren’t followed.”
The case is not over yet
Five of the 61 defendants were also indicted on charges of domestic terrorism and first-degree arson connected to a 2023 “night of rage” in which masked activists burned a police car in downtown Atlanta and threw rocks at a skyscraper that houses the Atlanta Police Foundation. Farmer said Carr also didn’t have the authority to pursue the arson charge, though he believes the domestic terrorism charge can stand.
Farmer said he plans to file a formal order soon and is not sure whether he would quash the entire indictment or let the domestic terrorism charge proceed.
Deputy Attorney General John Fowler told Farmer that he believes the judge’s decision is “wholly incorrect.”
Carr plans to “appeal immediately,” spokesperson Kara Murray said.
“The Attorney General will continue the fight against domestic terrorists and violent criminals who want to destroy life and property,” she said.
Defense attorney Don Samuel said the case was rife with errors. Defense attorneys had expected to spend the whole week going through dozens of dismissal motions that had been filed. During an impassioned speech on Monday, the first day of the hearing, Samuel called the case “an assault on the right of people to protest” and urged Farmer to “put a stop to this.”
“We could have spun the wheel and seen which argument was going to win first,” Samuel told The Associated Press after Farmer announced his decision from the bench.
The long-brewing controversy over the training center erupted in January 2023 after state troopers who were part of a sweep of the South River Forest killed an activist, known as “Tortuguita,” who authorities said had fired at them while inside a tent near the construction site. A prosecutor found the troopers’ actions “objectively reasonable,” though Tortuguita’s family has filed a lawsuit, saying the 26-year-old’s hands were in the air and that troopers used excessive force when they initially fired pepper balls into the tent.
Numerous protests ensued, with masked vandals sometimes attacking police vehicles and construction equipment to stall the project and intimidate contractors into backing out. Opponents also pursued civic paths to halt the facility, including packing City Council meetings and leading a massive referendum effort that got tied up in the courts.
Carr, who is running for governor, had pursued the case, with Kemp hailing it as an important step to combat “out-of-state radicals that threaten the safety of our citizens and law enforcement.”
But critics had decried the indictment as a politically motivated, heavy-handed attempt to quash the movement against the 85-acre project that ultimately cost more than $115 million.
Environmentalists and anti-police activists were united
Emerging in the wake of the 2020 racial justice protests, the “Stop Cop City” movement gained nationwide recognition as it united anarchists, environmental activists and anti-police protesters against the sprawling training center, which was being built in a wooded area that was ultimately razed in DeKalb County.
Activists argued that uprooting acres of trees for the facility would exacerbate environmental damage in a flood-prone, majority-Black area while serving as an expensive staging ground for militarized officers to be trained in quelling social movements.
The training center, a priority of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, opened earlier this year, despite years of protests and millions in cost overruns, some of it due to the damage protesters caused, and police officials’ needs to bolster 24/7 security around the facility.
But over the past two years, the case had been bogged down in procedural issues, with none of the defendants going to trial. Farmer and the case’s previous judge, Fulton County Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams, had earlier been critical of prosecutors’ approach to the case, with Adams saying the prosecution had committed “gross negligence” by allowing privileged attorney-client emails to be included among a giant cache of evidence that was shared between investigators and dozens of defense attorneys.
As the delays continued, defendants said their lives had been wrecked by the charges, with many unable to secure steady jobs or housing.
Three of the defendants, organizers of a bail fund that supported the protesters, had also been charged with 15 counts of money laundering, but prosecutors dropped those charges last year.
Prosecutors had previously apologized to the court for various delays and missteps, but lamented the difficulty of handling such a sprawling case, though Farmer pointed out that it was prosecutors who decided to bring this “61-person elephant” to court in the first place.
Defense attorney Xavier de Janon said Farmer’s decision is a “victory,” but noted that there are other defendants still facing unindicted domestic terrorism charges in DeKalb County, as well as numerous pending misdemeanors connected to the movement.
“The prosecutions haven’t ended against this movement, and I hope that people continue to pay attention to how the state is dealing with protests and activism, because it hasn’t ended,” de Janon said. “This is a win, and hopefully many more will come.”
Dozens of officers in riot gear from multiple agencies descended Monday afternoon on a pro-Palestinian encampment at Cal State L.A. to dismantle the camp and force protesters to leave after tensions escalated last week.
About 1:20 p.m., police issued a dispersal order in English and Spanish, and the remaining protesters in the encampment, a group of about 10, left voluntarily, said university spokesperson Erik Frost Hollins.
It was the last major pro-Palestinian protest encampment at a Los Angeles college.
Officers, who included those from the LAPD, California Highway Patrol and multiple Cal State campus police departments, did not use any weapons to remove protesters and made no arrests, Hollins said. Campus security and police blocked all road entrances to campus, although exits were open, and the campus was accessible by foot.
Using forklifts and large dumpsters, crews took down the painted and graffitied wooden boards that encircled the encampment and hauled them away. Many were painted in the red, green, white and black colors of the Palestinian flag and bore phrases including “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and “Google LASD gangs.”
Students launched the camp on May 1 to demand that Cal State L.A. and the California State University system disclose its investments, “divest from companies that financially and materially support genocide, defend the Palestinian people’s rights of resistance and return, and declare that the genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestine is illegal under international law,” according to a statement from the Students for Justice in Palestine at Cal State L.A.
Hollins said that, since the encampment launched, Cal State L.A. President Berenecea Johnson Eanes had visited it twice and held several conversations with protesters.
While other universities, including USC and UCLA, moved in relatively quickly to shut down pro-Palestinian encampments over the spring, the one at Cal State L.A. was tolerated for many weeks. For the most part, it hasn’t been a site of heated controversy or clashes involving students, campus officials or police.
But the nature of the relationship between the university and protesters changed Wednesday, Hollins said, when several dozen protesters barricaded themselves inside the student services building, with some administrators inside, for more than nine hours. The Students for Justice in Palestine group said that administrators were free to leave, with escorts, whenever they desired. The group said it communicated that message directly and via Instagram. About 60 staffers were in the building for roughly two hours before exiting. Around a dozen, including Eanes and Hollins, voluntarily remained behind.
Hollins said there was no specific event on Monday that spurred the university to call in police but said officials had been talking about taking the encampment down since the building occupation.
On Monday afternoon, Eanes said in a campus-wide email that “those associated with the encampment engaged in unlawful acts that put staff and students” at risk during the building occupation, “including assault, vandalism, destruction of property, and looting.”
“The only acceptable option for the safety of the entire campus community was for the encampment to disband and disperse. We will not negotiate with those who would use destruction and intimidation to meet their goals,” she wrote. “It does not escape me that public employees serving a public mission at a public university in one of the region’s most under-resourced communities have been victimized by those claiming to protest injustice.”
Eanes said the campus, where classes have been virtual since the middle of last week, would continue virtually on Tuesday. The university is in its summer session, which ends Aug. 10.
On Monday, the Cal State L.A. chapter of Faculty for Justice in Palestine said it had remained concerned for weeks that the peaceful encampment might be compromised as negotiations stalled and frustrations mounted.
“While the protest of June 12th produced a turning point for the encampment, we propose that timely, good faith negotiations with the students over their divestment demands is the best route to a resolution,” the group said in a letter posted on Instagram. “We also recommend that you communicate more clearly with the encampment students about a timeline and process for decampment, rather than resort to an unannounced possible sweep that is likely to produce trauma, harm, and violence as it has at other universities.”
An Instagram post by Students for Justice in Palestine at Cal State L.A. showed a video of what appeared to be activists talking to police in riot gear who were gathered outside the camp’s barricades. “We have to do whatever they say,” a voice from the camp says in the background. “Can we leave?” an activist says to police as the activist looks out at law enforcement. “Yes!” several officers say in unison. “I want you to go,” an officer says. “I want less of you in there.”
The encampment was nearly dismantled by 5:30 p.m. Its removal revealed graffiti covering the wall below the “Olympic Fantasy” tile mural near the heart of campus, with slogans such as “Gaza lives” and “Stop funding genocide.”
The student services building, the site of last week’s occupation, remained closed off with police tape. Tables and chairs were turned over on its patio, and graffiti remained across its ground-level windows.
A campus security worker not authorized to speak to media said officials would clean up the building area after the camp materials were fully removed. They said they weren’t sure whether that would happen Monday.
Onlookers, including students and neighborhood residents, expressed surprise at the encampment’s removal and the police presence Monday.
“I did not agree with what the camp stood for, but I walked by it many times,” said James Wheeler, who walked over to the encampment area — cordoned off with yellow police tape — while a helicopter flew above.
“These were mostly peaceful students,” Wheeler said, “and their protest was nothing like the conflict or controversy you have seen at other colleges, aside from the one time they went to occupy the building.”
A student who said she knew members of the encampment said the police response was “way overblown” considering it was about 10 activists who voluntarily left the scene. “They sent in all these police cars, these riot police, blocked off the streets, all for nothing. It’s out of control,” said the student, who declined to share her name.
In her letter Monday, Eanes said the university would “need to confront the aftermath of sheltering inside [the student services building], the anger at the destruction of student spaces they worked so hard to create, and the grief of feeling less safe on a campus we all cherish.”
Hollins said, during the sit-in, one employee had “something thrown at their head,” while another was pushed into the door and then out of the way as protesters forced their way into the building.
Protesters vandalized the building heavily, Hollins said, and the university is still investigating to determine whether there should be arrests. Protesters covered their faces and took other steps to hide their identities, which complicates the investigation, they said.
Activists defended their actions.
“The defense of the sit-in and the Solidarity Encampment will continue despite heavy police pressure from the University Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department until CSULA ends its financial and material support for genocide,” the group said in a statement last week.
Times staff writer Angie Orellana Hernandez contributed to this report.
Eilon Presman was about 100 feet from the UCLA Palestinian solidarity encampment when he heard the screams: “Zionist! Zionist!”
The 20-year-old junior, who is Israeli, realized the activists were pointing at him.
“Human chain!” they cried.
A line of protesters linked arms and marched toward him, Presman said, blocking him from accessing the heart of UCLA’s campus. Other activists, he said, unfurled kaffiyeh scarves to block his view of the camp.
“Every step back that I took, they took a step forward,” Presman said. “I was just forced to walk away.”
Pro-Palestinian activists demonstrate in UCLA’s Bruin Plaza after arrests were made at the Westwood campus Monday.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
It’s been a week since police swarmed the UCLA campus and tore down the pro-Palestinian camp, arresting more than 200 people. But the legacy of the encampment remains an issue of much debate, particularly among Jewish students, who make up nearly 8% of the university’s 32,000 undergraduates.
In the days leading up to April 30 — when pro-Israel counterprotesters attacked the camp with fists, bats and chemical spray, and police took hours to stop the violence — frustration had swelled among many Jews: Viralvideos showed activists restricting the passage of students they targeted as Zionists.
Some Jewish students said they felt intimidated as protesters scrawled graffiti — “Death 2 Zionism” and “Baby Killers” — on campus buildings and blocked access with wooden pallets, plywood, metal barricades and human walls.
The pro-Palestinian student movement includes various strains of activism, including calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, support for Hamas and demands that universities divest from firms doing business with Israel. But on campuses across the country, no word has become more charged than “Zionist.”
A pro-Israel activist peels a pro-Palestinian sticker off a sign on May 2 as a protest encampment was dispersed.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
In its most basic definition, a Zionist is somebody who believes that the Jewish people have a right to statehood in their ancestral homeland as a place of refuge from centuries of persecution — in other words, that Israel, established as a Jewish state in the wake of the Holocaust, has a right to exist.
Using that definition, the Anti-Defamation League considers anti-Zionism a form of antisemitism. But protesters — including many Jews — draw a sharp distinction, arguing that it is Zionism that fuels Israel’s right-wing government and the assault on Gaza that they say amounts to genocide against Palestinians.
Some of the Jewish students who took part in the encampment played a role in excluding Zionists.
Members of Jewish Voice for Peace at UCLA, a small but rapidly growing group on campus, argue they had a moral responsibility to pressure university officials to divest from Israel.
UCLA facilities employees clean up and dismantle the pro-Palestinian encampment on campus May 2.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
The camp and its checkpoints, they said, were not hostile to Jews. Restricting fellow students from entering was just a pragmatic move to protect protesters inside from physical, verbal or emotional abuse.
“We are committed to keeping each other safe,” said Agnes Lin, 22, a fourth-year art and art history student and member of Jewish Voice for Peace. Anyone who agreed to the UC Divest Coalition’s demands and community guidelines, she said, was welcome.
“What is not welcome is Zionism,” she added. “Or anyone who actively adheres to a very violent, genocidal political ideology that is actively endangering people in Gaza right now.”
In practice, students who supported the existence of Israel were kept out — even if they opposed Israel’s right-wing government and its bombardment of Gaza.
Senior Adam Thaw, 21, said activists blocked him and others from accessing a public walkway to Powell Library.
After telling him they were not letting anyone through, a male activist eyed his Star of David necklace: “If you’re here to espouse that this is antisemitism, then you can leave.”
Senior Adam Thaw is on UCLA’s student board of Hillel, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“Who are you to tell me where I can and cannot go?” said Thaw, who is on UCLA’s student board of Hillel, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world.
As complaints from Jewish students mounted, UCLA declared the encampment “unlawful.” In an April 30 statement, Chancellor Gene Block said most activists had been peaceful, but the tactics of some were “shocking and shameful.”
“Students on their way to class,” he said, “have been physically blocked from accessing parts of the campus.”
::
The campus was dark and hushed when Sabrina Ellis joined dozens of activists at 4 a.m. to set up the encampment on the lawn of Dickson Court.
After pitching tents and erecting barricades of wooden pallets and sheets of plywood, Ellis, a 21-year-old international student from Brazil, took shifts guarding the entrance.
Ellis didn’t call it a checkpoint. The goal was to exclude and physically block “agitators” — anyone who might be violent, record students or disagree with the cause.
“Our top priority isn’t people’s freedom of movement,” Ellis said. “It is keeping people in our encampments physically and emotionally safe.”
The longtime member of Jewish Voice for Peace — who wore a large Star of David over her T-shirt and a kaffiyeh wrapped around her shoulders — said the camp “was not profiling based on religion.”
But as activists blocked Zionist students from public campus space, they faced charges that they engaged in viewpoint discrimination.
Sabrina Ellis, a junior and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace at UCLA, was part of the pro-Palestinian encampment from the beginning.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Before allowing anyone in, Ellis said, a protester read the demands of the encampment, which included calling for UC and UCLA to divest all funds from companies “complicit in the Israeli occupation,” boycott all connections with Israeli universities, sever ties with the Los Angeles Police Department and demand a permanent cease-fire.
Then, activists ran through their safety guidelines: Ask before taking a photo or video; wear a mask to limit the spread of COVID; do not post identifying information or photos; and no engagement with counterprotesters.
If students didn’t agree, “we would just kindly tell them that they’re not allowed to come in,” Ellis said.
Some Jewish students were shaken by the experience, arriving at Hillel upset and even crying.
“They were genuinely going about their day and couldn’t get access as protesters asked them, ‘Are you a Zionist?’ or looked at their necklace,” said Daniel Gold, executive director of Hillel at UCLA.
::
For pro-Palestinian activists who are Jewish, the camp was a peaceful space to promote justice, a welcoming interfaith community with therapist-led processing circles and candlelit prayer services.
Blue tarps and blankets were put down in the middle of the lawn for Islamic prayers and a Passover Seder and a Shabbat service.
On the first evening, about 100 activists, many Jewish, sat in a circle to pray, sing, drink grape juice and eat matzo ball soup, matzo crackers and watermelon.
“It was really beautiful,” said Lin, the art major. “We were trying to hold these spaces to show that Judaism goes beyond Zionism.”
An encampment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA’s Dickson Plaza on April 29.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Other Jewish students were more wary as they navigated the camp.
Presman, who moved to the U.S. when he was 12 and identifies as a Zionist, was alarmed when he scanned the quad on the first day. He saw signs saying “Israelis are native 2 HELL,” he said, and banners and graffiti showing inverted red triangles, a symbol used in Hamas propaganda videos to indicate a military target.
“Do people know what that means?” he wondered.
Tucking his Star of David under his T-shirt, Presman said, he entered and approached activists, introducing himself as an Israeli citizen.
“Maybe we can find common ground,” he said, asking, “one human being to the other?”
Some students put their hands up, he said, blocking him as they walked away. Others treated the conversation as a joke. One protester, he said, told him that everything Hamas did was justified.
Presman said he had one good conversation: An activist who identified as anti-Zionist admitted not being 100% educated on what Zionism was, but agreed that Israel should exist. They came to the conclusion the activist was a Zionist.
Pro-Palestinian encampment participants reinforce the camp barriers at UCLA on May 1.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
But most of Presman’s exchanges, he said, ended negatively when activists realized he was defending Zionism. He said he was called a “dirty Jew” and “white colonizer.”
Other students — even those who did not fully support the encampment — said they did not experience such slurs.
Rachel Burnett, a senior who described herself as a non-Zionist Jew, disagreed with the call for divestment and academic boycotts, especially of UCLA’s Nazarian Center, an educational center for the study of Israeli history, politics and culture.
Entering the camp after a classmate vouched for her, Burnett was disturbed by anti-Israeli signs and graffiti that named Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson for the military wing of Hamas. But she also bonded with protesters, including a woman in a hijab.
“Of course, some protesters deny Oct. 7 or condone violence as long as it can be put under the guise of decolonial resistance, which is obviously horrific,” Burnett said. “But that’s not the case of many students inside the encampment.”
Rachel Burnett, a senior who described herself as a non-Zionist Jew, disagreed with the call for divestment and academic boycotts, especially of UCLA’s Nazarian Center, an educational center for the study of Israeli history, politics and culture.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Burnett contrasted what she saw as a peaceful, friendly mood inside the camp with the pro-Israel counterprotests where people held up benign slogans, such as “Bring the Hostages Home,” but engaged in hostile behavior.
As counterprotesters converged for a Sunday rally, she said, a pro-Israel activist spat on her and told she should have been slaughtered in the kibbutzim on Oct. 7.
Just as some pro-Palestinian activists demonized all Zionists as evil and pro-genocide — ignoring the wide range of viewpoints within the Zionist community — Burnett thought some pro-Israel counterprotesters were dehumanizing student activists in the encampment and spreading a “mass hysteria narrative.”
As the encampment expanded — and organizers set up entrance points near Royce Hall and Powell Library — some Jewish students took videos that swiftly went viral.
“It’s time to go,” a protester wearing a yellow safety vest and kaffiyeh told a student in one video as he guarded an entrance near Powell Library. “You don’t have a wristband.”
Before dawn Tuesday, more than 100 law enforcement officers in riot gear marched into the quad of Cal Poly Humboldt, clutching guns and batons.
They encircled a small group of protesters — including a furry one in a lime-green costume — who knelt on the ground, holding hands and reciting native chants.
“Resistance is justified!” the crowd yelled as officers informed them they were being arrested before pulling them up, one by one, and fastening their hands with zip ties.
The scene capped an extraordinary weeklong protest at this public university that has emerged as California’s strongest epicenter of civil disobedience over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Students at the state’s major campuses, including USC and Berkeley, have made the news over the last week. But Cal Poly Humboldt, tucked at the base of a redwood forest in rural Northern California and home to 5,976 students in Arcata, has taken on an out-sized role. Students have engaged in more vigorous disruption, occupying an academic and administrative building, painting buildings with graffiti and twice forcing police to retreat.
Humboldt is one of the smallest and most isolated of the Cal State schools, a hub for students in the rural towns and former logging communities of California’s far north coast and interior.
Yet those on campus understand why it has become such flashpoint.
Faculty leaders say activism is in the college’s DNA, noting that students and professors have practiced nonviolent civil disobedience for more than half a century — from the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s to the forest defense movement of the 1980s and 1990s.
“People ask, ‘Well, why do they occupy? Why don’t they do what everybody else does and sit outside in tents?’ ” said Anthony Silvaggio, the chair of the sociology department.
“It’s because we’re Humboldt,” he said, noting that as a graduate student in 1997 he was arrested during the Headwaters Campaign to save the last remaining old-growth redwood forests. “We occupy space! We have a rich history of taking over space and a long genealogy of direct-action tactics.”
After resisting multiple attempts by police in riot gear to remove them from a building, students renamed it “Intifada Hall.” They scrawled slogans such as “land back,” “destroy all colonial walls” and “pigs not allowed” up and down its corridors and wrote “BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS” across the wood-paneled walls of President Tom Jackson Jr.’s office.
They said they would not leave until the university disclosed all holdings and collaborations with Israel, cut all ties with Israeli universities, divested from companies “complicit in the occupation of Palestine” and publicly called for a cease-fire. They also called for the dropping of any legal charges against student organizers.
Jackson said Tuesday “it breaks my heart” to see arrests. “Unfortunately, serious criminal activity that crossed the line well beyond the level of a protest had put the campus at ongoing risk.”
But some faculty and students reject that narrative, accusing administrators and authorities of escalating a peaceful situation by bringing in riot police the first evening of the occupation. The closure of the entire campus, they argue, was unnecessary.
“These are the actions of conscientious individuals working to end a genocide, not the actions of criminals,” the faculty union, the university chapter of the California Faculty Assn., said in a statement
One of the activists arrested, assistant professor Rouhollah Aghasaleh, vowed to reject any bond and embark on a hunger strike until he and all his students were released.
“I refuse to accept the label of criminal for standing up for an ethical reason.” he wrote in a statement before his arrest. ::
At the heart of the showdown is a dispute that stretches beyond the Middle East to the question of how central activism is to the university’s mission.
Faculty leaders blame Jackson, who became president in 2019 and has overseen the university’s transition to a polytechnic. The new designation, made in 2022, was designed to increase sagging enrollment with high-demand STEM education and research offerings.
Officials hope the changes will result in a better university. But critics accuse Jackson of being out of sync with campus culture and failing to appreciate the university’s long history of environmental and social justice activism.
According to Silvaggio, Jackson has ruffled feathers by telling faculty, “We’re not here to train activists.”
Silvaggio — who said he learned tactics of non-violent civil disobedience from his professors, who were activists on the defense of native forests — now teaches courses in community organizing and social movements.
He noted that last week was hardly the first occupation of a Humboldt campus building: In 2015, students occupied the university’s Native American Forum for a week to protest the abrupt firing of the then-chair of the Indian Natural Resource Science & Engineering Program.
At the time, the university’s president visited the sit-in to talk to students, praising their action as “a real demonstration of your commitment to student access, achievement and completion.”
“Look at our mission,” Silvaggio said, pointing to the university’s purpose and vision statement, which commits to being a “campus for those who seek above all else to improve the global human condition.” It also commits to “partnering with indigenous communities to address the legacy of colonialism.”
Still, the occupation involved far more disruption than the one in 2015. Supporters of the movement acknowledge that they have developed bolder tactics and become more willing to eschew rules and leaders in the last decade with the coalescing of movements such as Black Lives Matter and the Black Bloc.
“There is no organization or leader,” Silvaggio said. “When these rudderless movements happen, you’re gonna have property destruction, vandalism. That’s the natural course of occupations these days.”
::
The occupation of Cal Poly Humboldt began April 22 when students showed up at Siemens Hall, an academic building that includes the university president’s office, with sleeping bags, board games and decks of cards. They barricaded the entrance with chairs and tables and erected a banner that said, “STOP THE GENOCIDE.”
Students planned a peaceful sit-in in the president’s office to protest Israel’s actions in Gaza, said a 23-year-old student from San Jose who asked to be known only as “Mango” because he feared retaliation. Transgender indigenous students started holding a prayer, he said, and then police showed up and started hitting.
The university gave a different account, saying students and faculty had to be evacuated as protesters disrupted classes and vandalized university property. In addition to defacing the building with graffiti, the university said, protesters blocked entrances and elevators with tents and in some locations shut doors using chains and zip ties, violating fire codes and “creating extreme safety hazards for those inside.”
Video taken from inside showed protesters blocked law enforcement from entering, a police officer beat a protester with a baton and a protester beat an officer’s helmet with an empty five-gallon water jug — a scene that swiftly turned viral, inspiring “jug of justice” memes with the catchphrase “Bonk the police.”
Three students were arrested. Citing safety concerns, officials announced a hard closure of campus, first through last Wednesday, then Sunday, and eventually for the rest of the semester.
Hundreds of students living on campus were told they could leave their dorms only if they had a valid reason and could be cited for trespassing.
Aaron Donaldson, a lecturer in the communications department and secretary of the faculty union, said students who tried to leave campus to get groceries complained of confrontations with police. He had 50 outlines to grade, but could not go get them for fear of arrest.
After another standoff Friday — police moved in that evening to enforce an order to disperse, students resisted and police ultimately withdrew — the university again condemned activists, claiming the occupation “has nothing to do with free speech or freedom of inquiry.”
But the administration said it would “continue to talk to anyone willing to have productive and respectful dialogue.”
In a gesture of good faith, the occupiers moved out of Siemens Hall on Sunday, clearing the building and moving their occupation to outdoor space.
::
By Monday afternoon, the tree-lined campus with glimmering views of Humboldt Bay had the feel of a nearly deserted, surreal summer camp.
Activists in pink, brown, and white furry costumes roamed outside the main administration building and quad, which was encircled with barricades of chairs, tables, trash bins and fencing.
After a faculty led teach-in about ablism, there was a march, followed by a Passover seder. As some munched matzo, others chanted: “From the river to the sea.”
As dusk fell, some activists put on goggles and helmets, carried makeshift shields, jangled tambourines and beat drums as they prepared for another standoff with law enforcement.
Just after 9:30 p.m., a patrol car rolled through campus, broadcasting a recorded message urging demonstrators to immediately disperse. If they did not move, protesters could face rubber bullets and chemical spray.
“Cops off campus!” the crowd chanted in unison.
Many faculty, barred from campus, massed on the street outside, saying they wanted to bear witness to what was happening to their students.
Dominic Corva, a professor of sociology, said he blamed Cal Poly Humboldt’s president for creating conditions that led to the standoff.
“This [university] has a president … completely at odds with [the] culture and pedagogy of the university,” Corva said. “His actions have escalated the situation.”
Jackson could not be reached for comment Tuesday. But in a statement, he said: “Our focus for the entire time has been on doing all we could do to protect the safety of all involved, and we were very patient and very disciplined with that.”
Donaldson said the standoff between activists and administrators had reinforced some key lessons of the social advocacy class he taught this semester: Direct democracy, he said, is fundamentally about non-violence and is never convenient; the point is to interrupt and to stop and to say, “Wait, we have to talk and pay attention.”
For Rick Toledo, 32, a student organizer on campus who did not occupy the building but supported the movement, the most pressing concern Tuesday morning was raising $10,000 per person for bail.
There had been some conflicts among activists over strategy and the value of graffiti, Toledo said. But in the course of the occupation, they had tried to come to a consensus and develop some rules.
“When you have varying ideologies and no strict guidelines, clashes are bound to happen,” Toledo said.
Going forward, Toledo hoped activists could develop guidelines before they occupied again.
“The movement can’t die here,” he said. “There’s so much pain in Palestine. What the students have done is huge and we need to keep that momentum.”
Under the cover of darkness, law enforcement officers converged on People’s Park and cleared activists from the green space early Thursday in preparation for construction of a housing complex for students.
Some resisters holed up for hours in a makeshift treehouse and on the roof of a single-story building in the park.
Police were met by protesters, chanting “Long live People’s Park” along with shouts of “Fight back!”
Activists protesting the clearing of People’s Park refused for hours to come down from a treehouse in the park but finally relented.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
A law enforcement officer points a weapon into a kitchen where activists were holed up at People’s Park.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Some protesters retreated to the roof of a building in the park before later agreeing to come down.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Authorities made multiple arrests as they cleared People’s Park in Berkeley.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
UC Berkeley police and other authorities clear People’s Park.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
At one point during the operation early Thursday morning, protesters ripped down police barriers and confrontations with law enforcement intensified.
A massive contingent of law enforcement officers converged on People’s Park in the wee hours of Thursday morning, intent on clearing the way for crews to wall off the storied green space near the UC Berkeley campus in preparation for construction of a much-contested housing complex for students.
The university launched the extraordinary operation — designed to double-stack metal cargo containers around the entire park perimeter — around 12 a.m.
On their arrival, police surrounded the park. Inside, they were met by several dozen protesters, chanting “Long live People’s Park” along with shouts of “Fight back!” Some were holed up in a makeshift treehouse and on the roof of a single-story building in the park.
By starting the exercise under the cover of darkness and during students’ winter break, university leaders hoped to minimize a conflict with activists adamant the park should remain open space, a living tribute to free speech and student activism. The university planned to install the cargo containers over several days, banking on the massive metal structures to provide a more formidable barrier than the fences protesters have easily breached in the past.
The university acknowledged that construction of the housing, ensnared in a legal dispute, cannot begin unless the state Supreme Court agrees that the Berkeley campus has completed an adequate environmental review of the project. The proposed development would create a dormitory with space for 1,100 students in a college town with a dire shortage of affordable housing. In addition, it would include permanent supportive housing for 125 people living homeless. About 60% of the site would remain green space, with commemorative exhibits about the park’s history.
“Given that the existing legal issues will inevitably be resolved, we decided to take this necessary step now in order to minimize the possibility of disorder and disruption for the public and our students when we are eventually cleared to resume construction,” Chancellor Carol Christ said in a prepared statement.
The university said it intended to keep streets around the park, and at least one block to the north and east, closed for three or four days.
“Unfortunately, our planning and actions must take into account that some of the project’s opponents have previously resorted to violence and vandalism,” Christ said, adding that this was “despite strong support for the project on the part of students, community members, advocates for unhoused people, the elected leadership of the City of Berkeley, as well as the legislature and governor of the state of California.”
Activists intent on preserving the park were tipped off several days in advance that the university would try to cordon off the site while students were on break. They called the incursion by law enforcement and work crews an “attack” that would destroy a legacy to people-powered activism.
Nicholas Alexander was among the activists standing watch over People’s Park on Wednesday evening, prepared to protest efforts to wall off the site.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Nicholas Alexander was among a small group standing watch over the park Wednesday evening around sunset. Alexander, once unhoused, praised the park as a place that needy people have been able to go for decades to find assistance. He said he was part of the group that helped tear down a university-erected fence in 2022. “This park has always helped the counterculture and the disenfranchised,” he said, “and it’d be a shame if it was taken from us now, because where else will we go?”
Another member of the group watching the park, Sylvia Tree, said she had graduated from Berkeley in 2021. She described the conflict as “a struggle based on the land.”
“It’s about a place where people who don’t own any land can have a little piece of it, a piece that you can grow things on, that you can have sunshine on, that you can meet your friends on,” said Tree, 25. “There’s nobody who controls it. There’s nobody who’s selling you something.”
Such passionate advocacy has become a perennial rite at the small patch of green just south of the campus and a few paces east of Telegraph Avenue.
It began more than half a century ago, in 1969, when the UC system’s founding campus announced its plan for development on what was then an empty lot. Hundreds of students and community activists had another idea, dragging sod, trees and flowers to the lot and proclaiming it People’s Park. The university responded by erecting a fence.
The student newspaper, the Daily Californian, urged students to “take back the park.” More than 6,000 people marched down Telegraph, where they were confronted by law enforcement. In the clash that followed, one man died and scores were injured.
In the decades since, the university has made repeated efforts to reclaim the property, once attempting to construct a parking lot on the edge of the park. A new generation of demonstrators arrived, with shovels and picks, to uproot the asphalt and restore plant life.
In the early 1990s, a young machete-wielding activist infuriated by the university’s construction of volleyball courts at the park was shot and killed by police after she broke into the campus residence of then-Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien. Police said they found a note in the teenager’s bag. It read: “We are willing to die for this piece of land. Are you?”
The push for the university to develop the property gained new life after Christ became chancellor in 2017 amid a student housing crisis. With Berkeley providing housing to a lower percentage of its students than any other UC campus, Christ promised to double the number of beds within a decade. She made it clear that she considered People’s Park — long a “third rail” that campus leaders avoided — a good location for housing.
The tensions over UC Berkeley’s efforts to develop People’s Park have spawned more than half a century of activism and debate.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Opponents of the housing development contend that UC Berkeley has not done enough to study alternative sites. Their cause got a boost in December, when a unit of the National Trust for Historic Preservation wrote a letter calling for “exploring all possible opportunities” for preservation of the park.
The university counters that its plan does acknowledge the historic nature of the park while also trying to resolve problems that have plagued the site and nearby streets in recent years, including homeless encampments, open drug use, petty theft and violence. UC Police Chief Yogananda Pittman characterized this week’s action as necessary to provide members of the community with “the safety and security they need and deserve.”
The university released results of a survey in 2021 that showed students favor the project by 56% to 31%. More recently, in an effort to address complaints that the proposed development would displace unhoused people living in the park, the university hired a full-time social worker and said most park denizens had been relocated to a Quality Inn and offered support services.
But the project suffered a setback early last year when a state appellate court ruled that UC had not properly complied with the California Environmental Quality Act, a decades-old lawknown as CEQA, whichrequires state and local governments to consider the environmental impacts of certain construction and housing projects. The court found the university had not properly addressed the issue of noise — specifically the noise generated by students who might drink and hold “unruly parties,” as some neighbors asserted in documents submitted to the court.
The court also ruled that the campus had not properly justified its decision not to consider alternative locations for the housing development. UC attorneys have said that because the project’s aim is to repurpose the park, no alternative would suffice.
The university appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court and also turned to the Legislature. Lawmakers passed a law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September, designed to make it easier for universities to build housing and overcome lawsuits from residents who raise noise concerns as a potential problem.
All parties in the dispute await a decision by the high court, and the new law presumably will factor into its deliberations.
The last concerted effort by UC to take control of the park for construction came in August 2022. Just hours after an Alameda County judge issued a tentative ruling that the university could begin clearing the park, construction machinery moved into place. But the 2 a.m. operation soon drew protesters who confronted construction crews, toppling a newly erected chain-link fence and streaming into the park, where they were tackled by California Highway Patrol officers.
By day’s end, the university ended the standoff by suspending its effort to take control of the park.
Berkeley City Councilmember Kate Harrison issued a public letter this week calling on police involved in any new go-round with protesters to “follow the City of Berkeley’s rules concerning use of ‘less-lethal’ weapons and tactics,” which include a ban on the use of pepper spray and tear gas. Harrison added: “These rules, established to protect human life and people’s first amendment rights, are core to our City’s value.”
Staff photographer Jason Armond contributed to this report.
You can sense it in the ubiquitous “Help Wanted” posters in artsy shops and restaurants, in the ranks of university students living out of their cars and in the outsize percentage of locals camping on the streets.
This seaside county known for its windswept beauty and easy living is in the midst of one of the most serious housing crises anywhere in home-starved California. Santa Cruz County, home to a beloved surf break and a bohemian University of California campus, also claims the state’s highest rate of homelessness and, by one measure based on local incomes, its least affordable housing.
Leaders in the city of Santa Cruz have responded to this hardship in a land of plenty — and to new state laws demanding construction of more affordable housing — with a plan to build up rather than out.
Many Santa Cruz business owners back the city’s plan for high-rise development, saying the city needs more affordable housing for servers and retail workers.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
A downtown long centered on quaint sycamore-lined Pacific Avenue has boomed with new construction in recent years. Shining glass and metal apartment complexes sprout in multiple locations, across a streetscape once dominated by 20th century classics like the Art Deco-inspired Palomar Inn apartments.
And the City Council and planning department envision building even bigger and higher, with high-rise apartments of up to 12 stories in the southern section of downtown that comes closest to the city’s boardwalk and the landmark wooden roller coaster known as the Giant Dipper.
“It’s on everybody’s lips now, this talk about our housing challenge,” said Don Lane, a former mayor and an activist for homeless people. “The old resistance to development is breaking down, at least among a lot of people.”
In recent years, Santa Cruz has approved development of modern multistory housing complexes, part of a broader effort to add housing stock.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Said current Mayor Fred Keeley, a former state assemblyman: “It’s not a question of ‘no growth’ anymore. It’s a question of where are you going to do this. You can spread it all over the city, or you can make the urban core more dense.”
But not everyone in famously tolerant Santa Cruz is going along. The high-rise push has spawned a backlash, exposing sharp divisions over growth and underscoring the complexities, even in a city known for its progressive politics, of trying to keep desirable communities affordable for the teachers, waiters, firefighters and store clerks who provide the bulk of services.
A group originally called Stop the Skyscrapers — now Housing for People — protests that a proposed city “housing element” needlessly clears the way for more apartments than state housing officials demand, while providing too few truly affordable units.
City officials say the plan they hope to finalize in the coming weeks, with its greater height limits, only creates a path for new construction. The intentions of individual property owners and the vicissitudes of the market will continue to make it challenging to build the 3,736 additional units the state has mandated for the city.
“We’ve talked to a lot of people, going door to door, and the feeling is it’s just too much, too fast,” said Frank Barron, a retired county planner and Housing for People co-founder. “The six- and seven-story buildings that they’re building now are already freaking people out. When they hear what [the city is] proposing now could go twice as high, they’re completely aghast.”
Frank Barron is among the activists who say the City Council’s development plans are out of character for the laid-back beach town.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Susan Monheit, a former state water official and another Housing for People co-founder, calls 12-story buildings “completely out of the human scale,” adding: “It’s out of scale with Santa Cruz’s branding.”
Housing for People has gathered enough signatures to put a measure on the March 2024 ballot that, if approved, would require a vote of the people for development anywhere in the city that would exceed the zoning restrictions codified in the current general plan, which include a cap of roughly seven or eight stories downtown.
The activists say that they are trying to restore the voices of everyday Santa Cruzans and that city leaders are giving in to out-of-town builders and “developer overreach laws.”
The nascent campaign has generated spirited debate. Opponents contend the slow-growth measure would slam on the brakes, just as the city is overcoming decades of construction inertia. They say Santa Cruz should be a proud outlier in a long string of wealthy coastal cities that have defied the state’s push to add housing and bring down exorbitant home prices and rental costs.
Diana Alfaro, who works for a Santa Cruz development company, said many of the complaints about high-rise construction sound like veiled NIMBYism.
“We always hear, ‘I support affordable housing, but just not next to me. Not here. Not there. Not really anywhere,’ ” said Alfaro, an activist with the national political group YIMBY [Yes In My Back Yard] Action. “Is that really being inclusive?”
Zav Hershfield, a renters’ rights activist, advocates rent control caps and housing developments owned by the state or cooperatives.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
The dispute has divided Santa Cruz’s progressive political universe. What does it mean to be a “good liberal” on land-use issues in an era when UC Santa Cruz students commonly triple up in small rooms and Zillow reports a median rent of $3,425 that is higher than San Francisco’s?
Beginning in the 1970s, left-leaning students at the new UC campus helped power a slow-growth movement that limited construction across broad swaths of Santa Cruz County. Over the decades, the need for affordable housing was a recurring discussion. The county was a leader in requiring that builders who put up five units of housing or more set aside 15% of the units at below-market rates.
But Mayor Keeley said local officials gave only a “head nod” to the issue when it came to approving specific projects. “Well, here we are, 30 or 40 years later,” Keeley said, “and these communities are not affordable.”
Santa Cruz County, known for its windswept beauty and easy living, is in the midst of one of the most serious housing crises anywhere in California.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Today, with 265,000 residents, the county is substantially wealthy and white.
An annual survey this year found Santa Cruz County pushed past San Francisco to be the least affordable rental market in the country, given income levels in both places. And many observers say UC Santa Cruz students contend with the toughest housing market of any college town in the state.
State legislators have crafted dozens of laws in recent years to encourage construction of more homes, particularly apartments, across the state. While California has long required local governments to draft “housing elements” to demonstrate their commitment to affordable housing, state officials only recently passed other measures to actually push cities to put the plans into practice.
Under the new regulations, regional government associations draw up a Regional Housing Needs Assessment, designating how many housing units — including affordable ones — should be built during an eight-year cycle. The state Department of Housing and Community Development can reject plans it deems inadequate.
For years 2024 to 2031, Santa Cruz was told it should build at least 3,736 units, on top of its existing 24,036.
For decades, Santa Cruz culture has centered on quaint shops and restaurants along sycamore-lined Pacific Avenue.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Santa Cruz and other cities have been motivated, at least in part, by a heavy “stick”: In cases when cities fail to produce adequate housing plans, the state’s so-called “builder’s remedy” essentially allows developers to propose building whatever they want, provided some of the housing is set aside for low- or middle-income families. In cities like Santa Monica and La Cañada-Flintridge, builders have invoked the builder’s remedy to push ahead with large housing projects, over the objections of city leaders.
The Santa Cruz City Council resolved to avoid losing control of planning decisions. A key part of their plan envisions putting up to 1,800 units in a sleepy downtown neighborhood of automobile businesses, shops and low-rise apartments south of Laurel Street. Initial concepts suggested one block could go as high as 175 feet (roughly 16 stories), but council members later proposed a 12-story height limit, substantially taller than the stately eight-story Palomar, which remains the city’s tallest building.
City planners say focusing growth in the downtown neighborhood makes sense, because bus lines converge there at a transit center and residents can walk to shops and services.
“The demand for housing is not going away,” said Lee Butler, the city’s director of planning and community development, “and this means we will have less development pressure in other areas of the city and county, where it is less sustainable to grow.”
Santa Cruz planning director Lee Butler advocates concentrating new development downtown, rather than building in areas where growth is less sustainable.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
A public survey found support for a variety of other proposed improvements to make the downtown more attractive to walkers, bikers and tourists. Among other features, the plan would concentrate new restaurants and shops around the San Lorenzo River Walk; replace the fabric-topped 2,400-seat Kaiser Permanente Arena, which hosts the Santa Cruz Warriors (the G-league affiliate of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors), with a bigger entertainment and sports venue; and better connect downtown with the beach and boardwalk.
Business owners say they favor the housing plan for a couple of reasons: They hope new residents will bring new commerce, and they want some of the affordable apartments to go to their workers, who frequently commute well over an hour from places such as Gilroy and Salinas.
Restaurateur Zach Davis called the high cost of housing “the No. 1 factor” that led to the 2018 closure of Assembly, a popular farm-to-table restaurant he co-owned.
“How do we keep our community intact, if the people who make it all happen, the workers who make Santa Cruz what it is, can’t afford to live here anymore?” Davis asked.
One opponent calls the plan to add high-rises to the city’s picturesque downtown “out of scale with Santa Cruz’s branding.”
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
The city’s plan indicates that 859 of the units built over the next eight years will be for “very low income” families. But the term is relative, tied to a community’s median income, which in Santa Cruz is $132,800 for a family of four. Families bringing home between $58,000 and $82,000 would qualify as very low income. Tenants in that bracket would pay $1,800 a month for a three-bedroom apartment in one recently completed complex, built under the city’s requirement that 20% of units be rented for below-market rents.
The people pushing for high-rise development say expanding the housing supply will stem ever-rising rents. Opponents counter that the continued growth of UC Santa Cruz, which hopes to add 8,500 students by 2040, and a new surge of highly paid Silicon Valley “tech bros” looking to put down roots in beachy Santa Cruz would quickly gobble up whatever number of new units are built.
“They say that if you just build more housing, the prices will come down. Which is, of course, not true,” said Gary Patton, a former county supervisor and an original leader in the slow-growth movement. “So we’ll have lots more housing, with lots more traffic, less parking, more neighborhood impacts and more rich people moving into Santa Cruz.”
Leaders on Santa Cruz’s political left say new construction only touches one aspect of the housing crisis. Some of the leaders of Tenant Sanctuary, a renters’ rights group, would like to see Santa Cruz tamp down rents by creating complexes owned by the state or cooperatives and enacting a rent control law capping annual increases.
“No matter what they build, we need housing where the price is not tied to market swings and how much money can be squeezed out of a given area of land,” said Zav Hershfield, a board member for the group.
The up-zoning of downtown parcels has won the support of much of the city’s establishment, including the county Chamber of Commerce, whose chief executive said exorbitant housing prices are excluding blue-collar workers and even some well-paid professionals. “The question is, do you want a lively, vital, economically thriving community?” said Casey Beyer, CEO of the business group. “Or do you want to be a sleepy retirement community?”
The town clock is one of several landmarks in the beach town.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Just days after the anti-high-rise measure qualified for the March ballot, the two sides began bickering over what impact it would have.
Lane, the former mayor, and two affordable housing developers wrote an op-ed for the Lookout Santa Cruz news site that said the ballot measure is crafted so broadly it would apply to all “development projects.” They contend that could trigger the need for citywide votes for projects as modest as raising a fence from 6 feet to 7 feet, adding an ADU to a residential property or building a shelter for the homeless, if the projects exceed current practices in a given neighborhood.
The authors accused ballot measure proponents of faux environmentalism. “If we don’t go up,” they wrote, “we have less housing near jobs — and more people driving longer distances to get to work.”
The ballot measure proponents countered that their critics were misrepresenting facts. They said the measure would not necessitate voter approval for mundane improvements and would come into play in relatively few circumstances, for projects that require amendments to the city’s General Plan.
While not staking out a formal position on the ballot measure, the city’s planning staff has concluded the measure could force citizen votes for relatively modest construction projects.
The two sides also can’t agree on the impact of a second provision of the ballot measure. It would increase from 20% to 25% the percentage of “inclusionary” (below-market-rate) units that developers would have to include in complexes of 30 units or more.
The ballot measure writers say such an increase signals their intent to assure that as much new housing as possible goes to the less affluent. But their opponents say that when cities try to force developers to include too many sub-market apartments, the builders end up walking away.
Santa Cruz’s housing inventory shows that the city has the potential to add as many as 8,364 units in the next eight years, when factoring in proposals such as the downtown high-rises and UC Santa Cruz’s plan to add about 1,200 units of student housing. That’s more than double the number required by the state. But the Department of Housing and Community Development requires this sort of “buffer,” because the reality is that many properties zoned for denser housing won’t get developed during the eight-year cycle.
As with many aspects of the downtown up-zoning, the two sides are at odds over whether incorporating the potential for extra development amounts to judicious planning or developer-friendly overkill.
Joyful, left, and Valerie Christy, right, jam for fun and a few dollars in downtown Santa Cruz.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
The city’s voters have rejected housing-related measures three times in recent years. In 2018, they decisively turned down a rent control proposal. Last year, they said no to taxing owners who leave homes in the community sitting empty. But they also rejected a measure that would have blocked a plan to relocate the city’s central library while also building 124 below-market-rate apartment units.
The last time locals got this worked up about their downtown may have been at the start of the new millennium, when the City Council considered cracking down on street performers. That prompted the owner of Bookshop Santa Cruz, another local landmark, to print T-shirts and bumper stickers entreating fellow residents to “Keep Santa Cruz Weird.”
Santa Cruzans once again are being asked to consider the look and feel of their downtown and whether its future should be left to the City Council, or voters themselves. The measure provokes myriad questions, including these: Can funky, earnest, compassionate Santa Cruz remain that way, even with high-rise apartments? And, with so little housing for students and working folks, has it already lost its charm?
Shares of GameStop Corp. surged Thursday, after the consumer electronics retailer named Ryan Cohen as it president and chief executive officer, effective immediately.
The move, which wasn’t unexpected, comes a few months after the company fired then-CEO Matthew Furlong, and elected activist investor Ryan Cohen as executive chairman. At that time, Cohen said in a tweet, “Not for long.”
Cohen will relinquish his role as executive chairman when he is appointed chairman.
GameStop’s stock GME shot up 9.9% in premarket trading, putting it on track to open at a three-week high.
Cohen, who previously founded and was CEO Chewy Inc. CHWY, -0.06%,
is the manager of RC Ventures, which in June disclosed a 36.85 million-share, or 12.1% stake in GameStop.
“In connection with his appointment, Mr. Cohen will assume the role of principal executive officer from Mark H. Robinson effective immediately and his responsibilities will include the oversight of all other executive officers, including Mr. Robinson,” the company said in a statement.
The company said Cohen will not receive any compensation for his roles as president, CEO and chairman, and will “continue to engage in various business activities and pursuits outside of the company.”
GameStop’s stock, which was one of the original “meme” stocks, has tumbled 37.2% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 index GME, +2.21%
has gained 14.9%.
“‘Icahn’s favorite Wall Street saying: “If you want a friend, get a dog.” Over his storied career, Icahn has made many enemies. I don’t know that he has any real friends. He could use one here.’”
— Bill Ackman, Pershing Square Capital Management
That was billionaire hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, founder and chief executive of Pershing Square Capital Management, resurrecting his longstanding feud with billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn in a tweet Wednesday.
Ackman was referencing the fallout from the recent report by short-selling firm Hindenburg Research that accused Icahn’s publicly traded investment vehicle, Icahn Enterprise Partners LP IEP, -13.83%,
of inflating asset values and causing his company to trade at a large premium. The report from May 2 has cost IEP about $10.9 billion in lost market cap, after the stock tumbled another 21% on Thursday.
Ackman said he is neither long or short IEP but merely “watching from a distance.”
But he seemed to agree with Hindenburg’s founder and CEO, Nate Anderson, who questioned margin loans extended to Icahn using his roughly 85% stake in IEP as collateral. Icahn has not disclosed the terms of those loans although he recently told the Financial Times that he used the money to make additional investments outside of his publicly traded vehicle.
“Over the years I have made a great deal of money with money,” he was quoted as having said. “I like to have a war chest, and doing that gave me more of a war chest.”
Ackman said the margin lender or lenders “must be extremely concerned with the situation,” particularly after IEP has disclosed a federal investigation of its business and corporate governance.
For his part, Icahn has called Hindenburg’s analysis “misleading and self-serving” and said it was designed solely to hurt long-term IEP shareholders.
Ackman compared the situation to that of failed investment fund Archegos, “where the swap counterparties were comforted by each having relatively smaller exposures to the situation.”
“The problem is that multiple lenders make for a more chaotic situation. All it takes is for one lender to break ranks and liquidate shares or attempt to hedge, before the house comes falling down. Here, the patsy is the last lender to liquidate.”
Ackman also expressed his surprise that Icahn has not disclosed the margin-loan terms, or even said who provided them. “My understanding of 13D SEC rules is that they require disclosure of sources of financing and even copies of financing agreements, although many investors ignore these requirements.”
Ackman also questioned how IEP’s large dividend yield is feasible, as it’s not supported by operating cash flows.
“The yield is generated by returning capital to outside shareholders, which is in turn funded by the company selling stock to investors,” said Ackman.
Icahn’s problem now is that his system has been outed by the short seller, Ackman wrote.
“Transparency is not the friend of $IEP having caused a more than 50% decline in the shares, which has caused Icahn to post more shares, now more than 65% of his holdings,” he said in the tweet.
The bad blood between Icahn and Ackman goes back to a business dispute the two had over a 2003 deal involving Hallwood Realty. The litigation between them went on for years.
But their animosity for one another hit a crescendo in 2013, when Bill Ackman publicly waged a $1 billion short-selling campaign against Herbalife. Sensing weakness, Icahn took a long position in Herbalife’s stock HLF, -5.21%
and helped deal Ackman significant losses on his bet over time.
The two claimed they had made up in 2014, sharing a stage at a conference broadcast by CNBC.
Ackman had previously had taken a soft shot at Icahn over the Hindenburg report, saying there was a “karmic quality” to it. But now their battle of Wall Street titans appears to be back in full force.
COP27 was another milestone for young climate activists as they became official climate policy stakeholders under the ACE Action Plan.
Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Young people have long been at the forefront of discussions and activism around climate change.
This year’s COP27 was another milestone for them — they became official stakeholders in climate policy under the ACE action plan, which was created at COP27 in Egypt over the last few weeks.
Young people’s voices and opinions will now be much more impactful when it comes to the design and implementation of climate policies, explains Hailey Campbell, one of the negotiators who made it happen.
“Official recognition as stakeholders in the ACE Action Plan gives young people the international backing we need to demand our formal inclusion in climate decision-making and implementation,” she told CNBC’s Make It.
Campbell is also the ACE co-contact point for YOUNGO, the youth constituency for the United Nations’ framework convention for climate change and the co-executive director of the U.S.-based organization Care About Climate.
ACE stands for Action for Climate Empowerment and is outlined in article 12 of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Improving education and awareness around climate change by making research easily accessible is one of its aims. Another goal of the article, and the new plan developed at COP27 to support it, is making sure governments and organizations around the world work together on policies and take opinions from the public and stakeholder groups into account when making decisions.
Srishti Singh from the Indian Youth Climate Network, who worked alongside Campbell at COP27, told CNBC’s Make It that the new ACE plan is key when it comes to different groups being considered in climate policy.
“Strengthening ACE in climate policy means better participation of stakeholders at local, regional, and global levels, including youth,” she said.
Young participants meet on a discussion panel in Youth and Children Pavilion during the COP27 UN Climate Change Conference.
Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
In short, being official stakeholders means young people get a bigger seat at the table. Campbell hopes that now, they will be able to shape policies that affect their future and work “with those who will not be here to see the impacts of decisions made today.”
The youth constituency should also see additional funding and support to take part in future COP conferences and other events about climate change, she adds.
Especially in recent years, young people have been some of the most vocal about strong climate targets and policies. Millions joined school strikes around the world, others took part in U.N. youth climate summits or made headway as activists, like 19-year old Greta Thunberg, or reached political leadership positions liked 28-year old Ricarda Lang, who is the co-leader of the German Green party.
This year’s COP27 also saw the first ever official youth representative, Omnia El Omrani, fight for the inclusion of young people’s voices, the launch of a climate youth negotiator program that aims to empower young climate activists from the global south, and the inaugural youth climate forum.
We know that including more youth creates more ambitious and just outcomes
Hailey Campbell
Co-Executive Director at Care About Climate and ACE Co-Contact Point of YOUNGO
Campbell says the goal was for young people to be at the center of policy-making.
“When we talk about representation, we don’t just want it at international negotiations and we don’t want to only be consulted. We want it at all levels of government and we want to be partners because action happens on the ground,” she said.
Her and her colleagues also hope to change the way older generations see climate change and its urgency.
“We know that including more youth creates more ambitious and just outcomes, so hopefully we will be able to advance quicker action on the climate crisis through our genuine involvement,” Campbell concluded.
Most people on YOUNGO’s team had never formally learned negotiation skills. This included Bettina Duerr, a policy officer at Federation Internationales Des Mouvements Catholiques d’Action Paroissial.
“I did not have specific training or support in this role, but I used experiences from other contexts. Plus, our working group was really supportive throughout,” she told CNBC’s Make It.
“It helped that I was already in touch with the working group before COP27 and that we planned our strategy,” she added.
As well as learning from each other, previous networking had put the group in contact with experienced negotiators who gave them advice, Campbell added.
But their overall strategy boiled down to just three points, she explained. Those included writing out agreements they hoped to reach, partnering with other constituencies and making sure they had other groups in their corner, backing their ideas.
Duerr and Campbell both described the negotiations as intense, draining and stressful — but their commitment to the cause outweighed this.
“We’d stop anything we were doing to join last minute meetings with each other and with parties that wanted to champion our perspective,” Campbell said.
