California sheriff slams 'meritless' UCLA student lawsuit against police who dismantled anti-Israel encampment

A California sheriff is condemning what helium described arsenic a "meritless" suit filed connected behalf of UCLA students and assemblage members, arguing that instrumentality enforcement officers responding to a pro-Palestinian encampment astatine UCLA past twelvemonth unjustly "attacked" students.

The lawsuit, filed by the Council connected American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)-Los Angeles, argues that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and California Highway Patrol (CHP) "engaged successful a associated cognition to onslaught and wide the UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment." UCLA declared the encampment to beryllium unlawful astatine the clip and canceled classes.

The LAPD and CHP told Fox News Digital they bash not remark connected pending litigation. Sheriff Chad Bianco successful neighboring Riverside County, who is not progressive successful the suit, shared his content with Fox News Digital that the plaintiffs are "100% wholly successful the wrong."

"At that time, determination were galore protests crossed not lone our authorities but different states that were happening, and my vexation ever is that schoolhouse medication allows it and instrumentality enforcement allows it," Bianco said. "And past erstwhile it gets retired of manus … past it makes for a spectacle connected the quality oregon connected societal media … and unfortunately, this is astir apt a meritless suit conscionable for publicity. This is conscionable perfectly ridiculous. It's a gross injustice to our ineligible system."

WHAT'S THE PENALTY FOR ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS? UCLA'S WARNING INCLUDES 1 CRUCIAL WORD

Police and different instrumentality enforcement officers entered an anti-Israel encampment astatine the University of California, Los Angeles, connected May 2, 2024. (Photo by ETIENNE LAURENT/AFP via Getty Images)

Bianco added that helium believes determination are radical with bully intentions who let for demonstrations and the close to explicit escaped code astatine the schools wherever specified protests instrumentality place, but they are acrophobic of being labeled arsenic a "genocide" protagonist oregon "bad people" by those who "take vantage of the situation."

ISRAEL'S PRESIDENT RELEASES BLISTERING STATEMENT ON US UNIVERSITY ENCAMPMENTS: 'RESURGENCE OF ANTISEMITISM'

Pro-Palestinian protesters basal with shields crossed from instrumentality enforcement successful an encampment astatine UCLA connected May 2, 2024. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)

"The bulk of those protesters are being paid. The bulk of the kids that are determination are reasoning that they're doing thing worthwhile, oregon they're conscionable going on with the program, and the bully radical are taken vantage of," Bianco said. "The bully students that are determination that don't privation it there, that don't privation the attention, that don't privation that connected their campus, they are being perfectly ignored for a very, very, precise tiny minority. The unlawful actions of that very, precise tiny number are wholly disrupting our schoolhouse systems."

Students erected the encampment connected April 25 and lasted until the aboriginal greeting hours of May 2, erstwhile constabulary began dismantling it.

Police and protesters clash astatine UCLA. (Getty Images)

"Officers tore down the encampment walls and attacked the students and assemblage members gathered inside," states the suit filed connected May 1 — precisely a twelvemonth since the UCLA encampment began to shutter.

The suit besides says that connected "April 30, pro-Israel [protesters] violently attacked the encampment and its participants with chemic irritants, fireworks, metallic rods, woody boards, and different weapons and attempted to teardrop down the barricades and breach the encampment, an battle that lasted for 5 hours earlier immoderate benignant of involution by police."

UCLA FALLS TO ANARCHY AFTER COUNTERPROTESTERS CONFRONT ANTI-ISRAELI ENCAMPMENT: 'HORRIFIC ACTS OF VIOLENCE'

Pro-Palestinian protesters show connected UCLA's field successful May 2024. (Grace Yoon/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Plaintiff Abdullah Puckett described constabulary officers arsenic "militarized" successful a May 5 statement.

"The horrific country of however militarized constabulary attacked unarmed peaceful protesters—the aforesaid nighttime I was changeable by police, unprovoked, with my hands up—reflects the [violence] we person each seen [from] the IDF [as they] bomb, and perpetrate wide execution against, unarmed Palestinian women and children," Puckett said. "This unsocial is capable of an statement that each links supporting Israeli militarism should beryllium cut—especially links betwixt the IDF and U.S. instrumentality enforcement and military."

A constabulary serviceman comes face-to-face with a protester astatine UCLA successful May 2024. (REUTERS/David Swanson)

He added that officers' actions successful May 2024 are "a wide motion that if we don’t basal against the oppression that others, similar Palestinians, look abroad, those methods volition beryllium utilized against america present successful America."

The suit alleges that officers utilized nonlethal rubber bullets, batons and different riot cogwheel portion responding to the protest, and it includes photos of immoderate students' injuries arsenic a effect of the field chaos past year.

VIDEO SHOWS ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS BLOCK JEWISH STUDENT FROM GETTING TO CLASS; UCLA RESPONDS

The CAIR suit alleges that officers utilized nonlethal rubber bullets, batons and different riot cogwheel portion responding to the protest, and it includes photos of immoderate students' injuries arsenic a effect of the field chaos past year. (CAIR)

"Across the country, from seashore to coast, universities person called upon militarized instrumentality enforcement agencies to soundlessness pupil voices demanding justness for Palestine," CAIR-LA Legal Director Amr Shabaik said successful a statement. "Campuses that should beryllium bastions of escaped thought person go battlegrounds of suppression … This suit is astir drafting a line. It’s astir saying that students person the close to talk retired without being brutalized and violently attacked by instrumentality enforcement."

Bianco reacted to statements from CAIR, saying "'militaristic' is simply a connection that incites a benignant of a fearfulness successful a mean idiosyncratic that, ohio my gosh, the subject is coming in."

"It is perfectly a horrific miscarriage of our justness strategy that attorneys are allowed to bash this," helium said.

UCLA protesters signifier a quality partition with tents and cardboard during protests successful May 2024. (REUTERS/David Swanson)

Harley Lippman, enforcement committee subordinate connected the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, likewise told Fox News Digital that the "protesters' encampment created an inherently volatile concern by erecting barriers, restricting field entree and disrupting assemblage operations, each actions that autumn extracurricular the scope of protected code and gave officers wide ineligible grounds to intervene."

"This suit faces important ineligible hurdles that suggest it is designed much for publicity than ineligible success," helium added. "Courts person consistently upheld qualified immunity for officers responding to dynamic protestation situations, with the Supreme Court repeatedly emphasizing that constabulary usage of unit indispensable beryllium judged from the position of a tenable serviceman connected the scene, not with cleanable hindsight. While the suit mightiness execute constricted occurrence connected immoderate peripheral claims oregon perchance scope a colony to debar protracted litigation costs, implicit occurrence appears highly improbable fixed some the existent ineligible scenery regarding qualified immunity and the important grounds that protesters were violating tenable time, spot and mode restrictions."

Police apprehension a pupil during protests astatine UCLA successful May 2024. (REUTERS/David Swanson)

Meanwhile, Wade Stern, president of the Federated University Peace Officers Association, which represents 350 sworn constabulary officers serving the University of California's 10 campuses crossed the state, issued a Wednesday connection describing the allegations successful the suit arsenic "baseless and inflammatory." 

He further described instrumentality enforcement's dismantling of the encampment arsenic a "necessary and cautiously coordinated effect to a unsafe and escalating situation."

WATCH: UCLA STUDENT ON CAMPUS BECOMING A ‘WAR ZONE’

"The encampment had grown progressively volatile pursuing convulsive clashes betwixt opposing groups. It instantly threatened field safety, nationalist order, and the rights of each students and module to entree a harmless and unafraid learning environment," Stern said. "Law enforcement's actions, including those of UCLA Police Department officers and extracurricular agencies brought successful to enactment the operation, were measured, lawful, and successful accordance with departmental policies and training."

Stern noted that students and protesters "ignored" "repeated warnings" from officials to "disperse from an amerciable encampment that had descended into chaos and violence."

ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS TAKE OVER PART OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY DURING FINALS, CALL IT ‘LIBERATION ZONE’

An anti-Israel protestation astatine UCLA was forcibly dispersed by authorities. (Getty Images)

The officers' effect was meant to "prevent further injury" and "restore order" for those connected field experiencing disruptions to their studies.

"It is telling that the suit disregards the extended documentation of unit that occurred wrong and astir the encampment earlier constabulary intervention," Stern said. "Officers were subjected to carnal resistance, and successful immoderate cases, nonstop attacks. The proposition that this was a ‘violent attack’ by constabulary connected a radical of peaceful demonstrators is not lone false—it is simply a unsafe distortion of reality."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Students are accusing officers of assault, artillery by a constabulary officer, negligence and conspiracy, arsenic good arsenic Bane Act and Ralph Civil Rights Act violations.

Bianco said helium believes akin convulsive clashes betwixt students and constabulary volition proceed unless leaders "stand up and accidental we're not doing this anymore."

UCLA and CAIR did not respond to requests for comment.