UTA Vice Chairman Jay Sures, who is also a UC Regent and outspoken supporter of Israel, saw his Brentwood home vandalized by protesters who massed in front of his house early this morning. Among other indignities, the protesters left bloody handprints on the door of his garage, and had to be dispersed by police.
Per Daily Bruin student journos Alexandra Crosnoe and Dylan Winward, the protest was organized by Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA, and they pegged the number of protesters at 50. All of them wore masks and scattered caution tape and flyers in his front yard. Sures said he is cooperating with authorities. This is the first time such a disturbance has happened at his home, and he feels the protesters crossed the line.
“It’s one thing to peacefully protest, but to go to an administrator or a Regent’s house to violate the hundred foot rule, which is what it is in Los Angeles, to disturb the entire neighborhood by pounding on drums, to surround my wife’s car and prevent her from free movement, and to put up signs, threatening my family and my life and vandalize the house, that is a big escalation.”
Asked why he believes he and his home were targeted like this for the first time, Sures told Deadline, “I’m Jewish. There are 18 Regents, and I’ve been outspoken; you can Google me about what I’ve written, what I’ve done in the world of the University of California. I’ve been pretty outspoken about the cause, about protecting our Jewish students, and they don’t like it. So they do this to try to intimidate you to, so you back off them. It’s all intimidation.”
The protesters were masked, but if police can identify them, he will press charges, Sures said.
“They’ve asked for all the security camera footage and they’re going to go back and look on the footage to see,” he said. “Everybody was masked. So they’re going to see if they can identify folks and yeah, I mean if we can identify folks, we’re definitely going to press charges.”
According to a LAPD report, officers were called to Sures’ Brentwood residence this morning at 6:15 am PT in response “to a large group, blocking the street and driveway.” Encountering around 50 masked protesters “banging on drums, making loud noises and causing disturbance,” as a law enforcement official told Deadline. Due to the size of the crowd and the vandalism of Sures’ garage, additional units were requested by the initial LAPD officers on the scene.
“Our job was to keep the peace,” an LAPD source said to Deadline this afternoon. “There were no arrests.” After the protesters left, a small posse of police remained well into the rest of the morning.
UCLA PD were also at the Sures’ residence and they were the ones who handled the vandalism of the bloody hands and flyers plastered on the garage door, we’ve learned.
It should be noted that Sures’ garage is several feet on his property, so whoever placed the flyers and handprints on the door of the structure was trespassing. Tape was strung around the front of the property.
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