LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A judge has ruled that a Palestinian cause sympathizer can move forward for now with most of his lawsuit against the UC Regents in which he alleges police hit him with a baton and shot him with a rubber bullet while he was in the on-campus Palestinian solidarity encampment in 2024.
Ziad El-Ghezzaoui also contends in his Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that he was detained without being given his Miranda rights. He was later released and maintains that the administration did nothing to stop the hostility growing at the time toward Palestinian cause sympathizers.
On Friday, Judge Samantha Jessner allowed El-Ghezzaoui to proceed with such causes of action as assault and battery, civil rights violations, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence. The judge dismissed a claim for taxpayer declaratory and injunctive relief and said the plaintiff will have to shore up his allegation of negligent failure to perform a mandatory duty.
According to El-Ghezzaoui’s suit, on April 30, 2024, a “violent mob” attacked a peaceful Palestine Solidarity encampment at UCLA for more than five hours while campus police “stood by and did nothing,” including making no arrests.
The suit further contends the regents, on UCLA’s behalf, coordinated with Los Angeles police and the California Highway Patrol to dismantle the encampment and two days later El-Ghezzaoui, a “peaceful non-violent demonstrator,” was jabbed repeatedly in the chest and abdomen with batons, grabbed by the face, thrown to the ground by his hair, kneed in his neck, struck twice in the head with a baton and struck in his left forearm by a rubber bullet.
El-Ghezzaoui also contends in his suit filed last May 7 that officers used tight zip ties that affected his circulation and his fingers turned purple. After police released him, he went unconscious three times and was diagnosed at a hospital with a concussion and other injuries.
The regents’ argument that El-Ghezzaoui was not a UCLA student is irrelevant to the lawsuit’s core civil rights claims, the plaintiff’s attorneys state in their court papers
According to the Regents’ lawyers’ pleadings, UCLA initially responded to the encampment with de-escalation strategies intended to clear the area peacefully. But when violence broke out between pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel protesters, UCLA made the “reasoned decision” to ask police to clear the encampment immediately for the safety of the campus community, the regents’ attorneys further contended in their court papers.
El-Ghezzaoui remained at the site despite repeated police orders to leave and was arrested, according to the regents’ attorneys’ court papers. The regents will have another chance to challenge El-Ghezzaoui’s claims later in the case with a motion for summary judgment.
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