LOS ANGELES – The University of California, Los Angeles should develop clear plans and policies, lines of communication and decision-making authority ahead of major protests such as the massive student protests against the Israel-Hamas war that shook the campus this spring, according to an outside source. review.

report The report, released Thursday by 21st Century Policing Solutions, a national law enforcement consultancy, said the university’s lack of preparedness and critical communication failures led to an extremely chaotic response in late April and early May.

The University of California requested this after UCLA’s controversial handling of the protests.

Clashes broke out between protesters and counter-protesters led to more than a dozen injuries on campus and More than 200 people were arrested at a demonstration the next day after hundreds of people He defied orders to leave.

Police threw flash grenades to disperse the crowd and smashed the fortified camp’s barricade of plywood, pallets, metal fences and garbage bins, then tore down awnings and tents.

As events unfolded, UCLA administrators occasionally kept campus police from important meetings and briefings, the report said.

Campus police also had no plans to interact with outside law enforcement, and the Los Angeles Police Department and California Highway Patrol had to develop a specific plan without guidance from the officers who knew the campus best.

The report notes that the “central tension” over whether and how police should ensure public safety is part of a national conversation and something UCLA needs to engage with its community.

“UCLA has so far responded ineffectively to this tension by functionally excluding police from planning and response, only to then require law enforcement to intervene when tensions escalate into violence,” the report says.

The university said in a statement that it is committed to campus safety and will continue to implement recommendations, some of which are being studied.