Cal State Protest Occupation Stranded Staff

(Etienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images)

Anti-Israel protesters at Cal State Los Angeles on Thursday ended their building occupation, which stranded faculty overnight and resulted in an untold amount of damage, according to local media reports.

Roughly 50-100 protesters breached the Student Services Building on Wednesday and used furniture, golf carts, and tables, among other things, to barricade themselves in the building, KABC reported. A handful of faculty were forced to shelter in place overnight, possibly including Cal State President Berenecea Johnson Eanes, whose office is on the building’s eighth floor.

The administrators stuck in the building were “working through options to bring this fluid situation to the best resolution possible,” campus spokesperson Erik Hollins said Wednesday. The Los Angeles Police Department told KABC that they had not been asked to intervene.

The faculty were then able to leave the building Thursday morning, KTLA5 reported. It wasn’t clear if Eanes was among the group forced to shelter in place when protesters from the CSULA Gaza Solidarity Encampment emailed university officials to say they were going to stage a sit-in on the first floor of the building, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The protesters abandoned the building Thursday morning, leaving behind a trail of debris and damage. Media outlets reported overturned vending machines, broken furniture, broken windows and a large amount of trash, in addition to pro-Palestinian graffiti.

The protesters said on social media their occupation stemmed from radio silence from Eanes, whom they say “continues to dance around and repress our divestment demands” from all things Israel, adding, “We’ve been waiting for a response to our demands for 18 days.”

“We don’t think property is sacred,” one protester told KTLA5. “We believe that lives are more important than property. Especially when our money goes to this school. This is extensively our university, but we aren’t treated that way.”

The university announced Wednesday night that all classes at the main campus would be held remotely until further notice.