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For nearly a year, the UCLA Police Department has kept the cellphones of 40 UCLA students they arrested during last year’s mass demonstrations over the war in Gaza.Without their phones students faced extreme hardship, according to attorneys affiliated with the National Lawyers Guild.At least one student lost her job when her employer couldn’t reach her, a student journalist with the Daily Bruin said it made reporting for the newspaper difficult, and one student missed a shift at an internship.
Some students had trouble staying in touch with family, attorneys said.On Monday, the university’s police department said it would give phones back to the students.California The Los Angeles city attorney’s office will not file criminal charges against the vast majority of protesters arrested at UCLA and USC during last year’s mass demonstrations over the war in Gaza.Acting Police Chief Scott Scheffler wrote in an email to The Times that the decision stemmed from Los Angeles City Atty.
Hydee Fieldstein Soto’s announcement last week that she was not filing charges against most of the UCLA and USC students arrested in April and May 2024.“As of this morning the phones are no longer being held as evidence,” Scheffler wrote.“Individuals who have not yet picked up their phones will be notified and can make an appointment with our Property Unit to do so.”But students will only have two weeks from the date they receive written notification from the department to retrieve their phones before they are destroyed, said Cynthia Anderson-Barker, an attorney with the lawyer’s guild.It’s a timeline she says is unfair for the many students who no longer live in Los Angeles.
She’s requested that an attorney be permitted to collect the phones on behalf of the students.She said students would need to bring identification and show proof they own the phone.They will also require a notarized letter if someone else wants to pick up the device.
The police department keeps...