[ad_1]
By Edwin Black, Special to the Jewish Star
It began as another frustrating example of a university refusing to act. After an aggressive disruption at a student debate at the University of California at Los Angeles on May 17, a senior Los Angeles City lawyer reviews evidence and complaints from the police for criminal prosecution.
Students supporting Israel were gathered in a UCLA meeting room for a panel discussion entitled "Indigenous Peoples Unite". The disruptors stormed the room mid-session. One person snatched the students' flag, removed a sign on the desk, and insulted a panelist. With loudspeakers, whistles, loud dances and shouting slogans, the event was closed. The bellicose disturbance and intimidation of the participants were captured on video.
Although the UCLA administration publicly promised a referral to prosecutors, no such action was taken because the campus police were expecting formal complaints from students intimidated. It was only after the police reports were filed that the police would investigate and determine if a referral to prosecutors was necessary. Then, the prosecutors would evaluate the evidence and decide whether a prosecution is warranted.
All students contacted by this reporter stated that they did not know that they had the right to make a police report.
Following the media revelations of UCLA's inaction, two Jewish groups came into action – the Louis D. Brandeis Center, headed by Constitutional Attorney Alyza Lewin, and the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Center, led by lawyer Yael Lerman. The Washington-based Brandeis Center has sent its lawyer, Aviva Vogelstein, to Los Angeles. Together, Lerman and Vogelstein personally escorted many students as well as a community member to the UCLA Police Department where they filed formal complaints.
Laura Leve Cohen, a major contributor to the Jewish Studies Center at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where she sits as a member of the advisory council and community member who attended at the event, complained.
His complaint begins: "Have you ever been confronted by an angry crowd unable to leave? I did not have it. Until Thursday night, May 17, 2018. … In the middle of the presentation, an angry and uncontrolled crowd burst into the clbadroom shouting and chanting. In other words, we were trapped by a crowd of student protesters, surrounded on all sides, and unable to leave the room. "
After processing the reports, the UCLA Police Department opened the case 18-1206, attributing it to Inspector Selby Arsena, whose background investigating the Campus violence includes a stabbing case in 2011 that culminated in a 12-year prison sentence.
In mid-July, Arsena delivered his case to Los Angeles City prosecutors, who handed him over to the office's badistant supervisor, Spencer Hart. A remarkable Hart lawsuit involved a jail sentence for a student found guilty of arbitrary imprisonment at UCLA.
Arsena and Hart both refused to comment on this article.
A few days after the 18-206 file landed on Hart's desk, he received a seven-page letter, sent jointly by the Brandeis Center and the StandWithUs legal center, a copy of which was obtained by this journalist. . The joint letter was a careful and detailed examination of the evidence, legal precedents and case law.
"There is a precedent in California to prosecute and convict disrupters who break the criminal law in their attempt to silence speakers on campus," says the letter. He continued, "In a similar pattern of facts in 2011, a jury sentenced ten student students of the Union of Muslim Students to an offense for disrupting the former Israeli ambbadador to the United States. , Michael Oren, in a coordinated effort at a California-Irvine public event ("UC Irvine") … [later] confirmed by a panel of three judges from the Orange County Superior Court. We believe that the facts in the case before you, Criminal Report No. 18-1206, deserve similar prosecution and result in similar convictions. "
The Brandeis-SWU letter stated the alleged potential criminal violations that Brandeis and SWU had previously described in a letter to the UCLA directors: "§ 403 – disruption of a meeting or meeting, § 415 – disturbance of the peace, § 182 – criminal conspiracy to do the "aforementioned" and added two others based on additional searches: "§ 242 – battery; § 664 – unsuccessful attempt to commit a battery; and § 594 – vandalism." The letter is jointly signed by Lewin, Vogelstein and Lerman, who have become the most active in the effort to see the case pursued.
Lewin commented, "This disturbance was flagrant and illegal and must be properly prosecuted."
While Lewin, Vogelstein, and Lerman led efforts to file police reports and advocate for prosecution, many Jewish and pro-Israeli organizations expressed support. A few days after the disruption, the legal department of the Zionist Organization of the United States sent a letter to UCLA insisting that a violation of the state's criminal law was clear.
If the prosecutions and convictions result from the disruption of the UCLA event stoppage on May 17, it is expected that it will help to define the criminal boundaries of such disruptions on campuses across the country.
Edwin Black is the author of the New York Times bestseller Financing the Flames.
[ad_2]
Source link
