Los Angeles, California - The State of California and the City of Los Angeles are facing a new lawsuit over the violent repression of student protests at UCLA's Gaza solidarity encampment last year.

Over 700 officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Los Angeles Police Department, California Highway Patrol, University of California Police Department (UCPD), and private security descended on the UCLA campus last spring in a bid to break up campus Gaza solidarity demonstrations.

During the May 2024 raids, officers shot more than 50 rounds of rubber bullets (aka kinetic energy projectiles) at demonstrators, injuring some. The new suit argues this violent response created a chilling effect on First Amendment-protected rights to free speech and protest, The Intercept reported.

"The encampment clearance by means of violence, excessive force, and kinetic energy projectiles traumatized Plaintiffs, chilled their protest activity, and justifiably made them less willing to engage in any further Palestine-related protest activity," states the complaint, filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of plaintiffs who had been shot with rubber bullets.

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"This was the natural consequence of the dramatic and violent clearing organized and carried out by CHP and LAPD, which would have certainly chilled any ordinary person from engaging in Palestine solidarity advocacy in the future."

The fallout began when a mob of counter-protesters attacked students taking a stand for Palestine for hours at the university on April 30, 2024, while campus security and police did nothing to intervene. The demonstrators were allegedly sprayed with chemical agents, harassed, and sexually assaulted.

The following day, UCLA called in the Los Angeles Police Department and California Highway Patrol to forcibly remove Palestine solidarity activists. Over 200 people were arrested in the militarized crackdown.

A separate lawsuit announced in March accuses UCLA of "repeatedly and systemically" violating the rights of demonstrators during the protests last year.

Meanwhile, repression of solidarity actions at UCLA continues.

Last Wednesday, around 30 UCPD officers in riot gear reportedly ran into a crowd of students, detaining several people and confiscating equipment, during an on-campus screening of the documentary The Encampments, which covers the Gaza student protest movement in the US.

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"The UCPD's deployment of officers in riot gear in response to students gathering for a film screening is an outrageous and clear act of intimidation," Amr Shabaik, legal director of the Los Angeles branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement.

"The incident last night mirrors the many attempts we've seen over the past year to suppress pro-Palestinian voices as UCLA leadership continues to try and stifle any student activism or viewpoints advocating for Palestine."

CAIR and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee previously designated UCLA an "institution of particular concern" over its creation of a hostile campus environment for anti-genocide protesters.