UCLA protests LAPD using Jackie Robinson Stadium for protest arrest processing

Some at UCLA protested what they called the university’s “collaboration” with LAPD in allowing the use of the university’s Jackie Robinson Stadium to process protesters arrested for curfew violations during the uprising sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.

In a letter, dozens of faculty members said police deliberately crowded protesters arrested in downtown Los Angeles and Westwood into sheriff’s buses and brought them to the stadium, where the university’s baseball team plays under a lease with the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs.

The letter says officers did not wear masks and disregarded other CDC, city and county measures to curb COVID-19 contagion.

“The cruel irony that this took place at a location used as a COVID-19 testing site is not lost on those arrested or on us,” said the professors, who demanded the university end use of the stadium by police. The professors who signed the letter include Ananya Roy, professor of urban planning and social welfare and director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy; Kelly Lytle Hernánde , director of UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies and a MacArthur Fellowship recipient; and Cheryl Harris, professor of civil rights and civil liberties at the UCLA law school.

UCLA said in a statement: “We’re troubled by accounts of Jackie Robinson stadium being used as a “field jail.” This was done without UCLA’s knowledge or permission. As lessee of the stadium, we informed local agencies that UCLA will NOT grant permission should there be a request like this in the future.”