Prosecutors on Thursday announced felony charges against 12 pro-Palestinian protesters (current and former Stanford students or alumni) who were allegedly breaching and destroying the Stanford Management Building in June and clad inside and destroying them before being arrested the same day.
The charges against 12 appear to represent California’s most serious prosecutors of those arrested in protests and camps that rocked their campus last spring in protest of Israeli war in Gaza.
“The opponents are Americans. Vandalism is a crime,” said the Santa Clara County Dist. Atty. Jeff Rosen. “There is a bright line between making a point and committing a crime. Unfortunately, these defendants crossed the boundaries of criminality when they broke into those offices, barricaded them inside and launched a calculated plan of destruction.”
Santa Clara County Destoy. Jeff Rosen, the center on Thursday announced felony charges against 12 pro-Palestinian protesters allegedly breaking into Stanford’s administration building last year.
(Susanne Rust/Los Angeles Times)
The lawyer representing protester Hunter Taylor Black said his clients understand that there are consequences, but emphasized that his clients and others had a months-long suspension, sacrificing their homes, health insurance and classes and placing their academic futures in Limbo.
“After going through all of that, they’re facing this,” Attorney Tony Brass said.
A Stanford spokesperson confirmed that the student charged on Thursday received a two-quarter suspension followed by “probation, delayed degree and community service hours.” The school will “respect” the district attorney’s decision on criminal cases, Dee Mostofi said.
At the time of the stabbing acquisition, the defendants ranged from 19 to 32 years old, including both current Stanford students and alumni. Prosecutors allege they smashed windows and furniture and splashed fake bloody and impaired security cameras in 10 buildings where President Stanford’s office is located.
The occupation of the building caused an estimated $250,000 in damages.
The protesters are charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass.
Graffiti was found on the walls of a Stanford University building last June.
(Nick Cooley/AP)
These charges are faced with: Maya Burke, 29. Zoe Edelman, 21; Eliana Fuchs, 25; Gonzalez of Germany, 21; Gretchen Gimarin, 23; Taylor McCann, 32; Cameron Pennington, 23; John Richardson, 20; Hunter Taylor Black, 25; Isabella Terrazas, 23; Kaiden Wang, 22; Amy Zai, 22.
Escalation of protest
The intrusion occurred around 5:30am on June 5th, and the action also included spray painting on the outside of the building. One or more participants broke the windows and entered the building, and other participants entered. Before the cameras were covered, “multiple suspects carried 10 suspects into the building and recorded the barricade entrances and exits using ladders, furniture and additional equipment brought into the building,” prosecutors alleged in a news release. “The suspects in the building have begun recording social media videos listing a series of requests.”
The protesters vowed not to leave until the manager responded to their demands to sell from Israel, but law enforcement quickly got off, broke through the barricade and entered around 7am.
According to a statement from the university last June, participants were released within hours but were stopped shortly. Elderly people were not allowed to graduate either.
In that statement, university officials condemned the protests and said campus safety officers were injured while the building was occupied. There was also a “spread graffiti vandalism” with “the sandstone buildings and pillars that were mean and hateful emotions that we denounce in the strongest terms.”
Released Stanford, a local autonomous group of Stanford University students that organized the building’s acquisition, and accused law enforcement of “hardly attacking it.”[ing] “When officers prepare to enter, peaceful student protesters.”
After the student was arrested, the university closed the activists’ camp at White Plaza. This allowed staff to stay despite saying it was in violation of the university’s policies regarding overnight camping, fair access to the square and the use of amplified sounds.
Brass, a student’s lawyer, said that activism is not a license to crime, but that he understands “student protesters’ voices are important in American history.” [in Gaza] It will rise by that day. …Whatever your politics is, you want to stop the death of a toddler immediately. I can understand. I hope that the District Attorney’s Office is worthy of acting with certain reconciliation justice with some degree of mercy. ”
The charges owed the biggest punishment in a state prison of three years and eight months, but the district attorney said imprisonment was an unlikely result.
Rosen said he pleaded guilty to the defendant and wanted Stanford to pay compensation. He added that the incident is not about protester politics.
“If these defendants stopped at the building 10 threshold and simply expressed their opinion, we wouldn’t be here today,” he said.
Student supporters don’t see it that way.
“Instead of listening to their demands for justice and accountability, our agency chose to suppress,” said Zarabiroo, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area area of the American Council on Islamic Relations. “Indicting these youths with felony charges is a blatant attack on freedom of speech.”
Student journalist has not been charged
First-year student Dylan Gohill was also arrested when he was reporting it was embedded in the building with protesters from the scene at the Stanford Daily Newspaper.
For months, the Stanford administration had been urging Gohir’s prosecution with others, but eventually left the position under the flood of groups who came to defend Gohir.
According to a review of Columbia Journalism, university officials immediately allowed Gohill to return to campus.
Almost big fees
Stanford’s prosecutors are one of the most serious consequences for more than 3,200 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested on 73 university campuses between April and July last year. The tally is based on Associated Press reviews of student, university and district attorney records and investigations.
Some of the biggest demonstrations and arrest tolls deployed in California, including UCLA and USC, have called for students to break away from financial ties.
More than 100 demonstrators have been arrested on campuses, including Columbia University in New York, Emerson University in Boston, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
As of November, the appeals, a left-wing nonprofit news organization, found that the largest number of cases were in the range, with most others not leading to felony prosecutions.
In California, the era and AP analysis reached similar conclusions, but students faced serious campus disciplinary consequences, even without prosecution.
There is a one-year period where you can file a misdemeanor claim. This means that deadlines are approaching for resolution in many cases.
Last month, a group of pro-Palestinian protesters sued UCLA last spring over handling the demonstrations. The lawsuit identifies 20 attackers who conducted the attack, and some of the violence was captured on video.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has not filed any lawsuits related to the case. Prosecutors squeezed felony assault charges against 19-year-old Edan, who was first identified among attackers in a 2024 CNN report and arrested on video of a pro-Palestinian protester at Paul.
Prosecutors certainly confirmed that he had committed a “assault,” but they referred the case to the LA city law firm due to his age, lack of criminal history and the minimal injuries suffered by his victim. A spokesman for the city’s law firm said it is still under review.
James, a staff writer for the Times, contributed to this report.
