On March 20, the California Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced that several law firms have filed a lawsuit on behalf of protesters and journalists who were attacked at UCLA by counter-protesters on April 30, 2024. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit were all at a pro-Palestine encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus. At least two individuals named as defendants are Beverly Hills residents.
The suit names UCLA, the University of California Regents, officials working for UCLA’s Police Department (UCPD), the California Highway Patrol, the Los Angeles Police Department and more than 20 individual defendants. It was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. The lawsuit’s 12 causes of action include civil rights violations, assault, battery and false arrest. It seeks compensatory damages, statutory damages of $25,000 for each claim, trebling of compensatory damages, punitive damages, costs of litigation and attorneys’ fees.
According to the lawsuit, the encampment erected on the UCLA campus was a protest against “Israeli state actions in Gaza.” On April 30, a large group of masked counter-protesters launched fireworks into the camp, hurled racial epithets, beat protesters with large sticks and sprayed chemical irritants, resulting in multiple injuries.
In a press release, the plaintiffs announced that they had filed the civil rights lawsuit against “numerous mob attackers, three police agencies, and the university—because those three nights deprived the plaintiffs of their rights to assemble, speak, learn, and organize freely and safely and left many with life-altering injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Dina Chehata, the Civil Rights Managing Attorney for the Greater Los Angeles area office of CAIR, said the over 30 plaintiffs were each “injured in a different way.” She added, “A lot of our plaintiffs were directly injured by these thugs that came onto campus and beat them viciously.”
Chehata also said that “UCLA holds some of the liability for letting that attack go on. People have to remember this attack that went on for at least four hours, with UCPD standing right there and witnessing calls and pleas of help to UCLA.”
Two of the defendants named in the suit are described as Beverly Hills residents. Defendant Edan On was a student at Beverly Hills High School at the time of the attack. The lawsuit also names Isaac Bokhoor, who plaintiffs claim is a Beverly Hills resident and owner of Angel City Jewelers. He is accused in the suit of “repeatedly smashing” plaintiff Thistle Boosinger’s hand, “breaking it and severing a nerve in her finger.”
The Courier reached out to several of the individual defendants named in the suit, but none returned requests for comment.
Rachel Zaentz, Senior Director of Strategic and Critical Communications for the University of California’s Office of the President, emailed a statement to the Courier that said, “We were recently notified of the suit, and we are currently gathering additional information. We want to be clear: the University of California unequivocally rejects all forms of hate, harassment, and discrimination. Violence of any kind has no place at UC.
We have instituted systemwide reforms to promote safety and combat harassment and discrimination on our campuses. Our focus remains to maintain a UC that is safe and welcoming to all.”
Another lawsuit, filed by a group of Jewish students and a Jewish professor at UCLA, alleges that the university knowingly acted in concert with or allowed members of the protest encampment to prevent the Jewish students from accessing a central campus space. The newly created Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced on March 17 that the Justice Department has filed a statement of interest in the case.
