Twelve pro-Palestine protesters who broke into a Stanford University building last June and proceeded to splatter fake blood and damage administrative offices will face felony charges for vandalism and conspiracy to trespass, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen announced Thursday morning.
The group includes eight current Stanford University students and four other individuals, three of whom have had prior affiliations with the university, Rosen said. They reportedly broke into Building 10 at about 5:30 a.m. on June 5, disabled security cameras and used ladders, furniture and other equipment to barricade themselves inside the building, according to Rosen.
The group then proceeded to record social media videos listing various demands. They were inside for more than an hour before Stanford deputies arrested them.
The protesters were joined by a reporter from the Stanford Daily who was also detained after the protest. The District Attorney last month announced that the journalist, Dilan Gohill, will not be charged with any crimes.
The 12 protesters, meanwhile, will face up to three years and eight months in prison after causing what Stanford University estimated to be $700,000 in damages. Some individuals who entered the building left before deputies arrived to arrest those who were still inside, according to the university.
The protesters who are facing charges are Cameron Michael Pennington, German Gonzalez, John Thomas Richardson, Kaiden Wang, Amy Jing Zhai, Eliana Lindsay Fuchs, Gretchen Rose Giumarin, Hunter Taylor-Black, Isabella Terrazas, Maya Burke, Taylor McCann and Zoe Georgia Edelman, according to the complaint filed by the District Attorney.
In a press conference announcing the charges, Rosen emphasized that the decision to charge these individuals had nothing to do with their views or causes and everything to do with their illegal actions.
“Dissent is American. Vandalism is criminal,” Rosen said. “Speech is protected by the First Amendment; vandalism is prosecuted under the penal code.”
He characterized the June 5 break-in as an organized operation that was planned well in advance. Public safety recovered various forcible-entry tools, including hammers, crowbars, window punch, chisels, screwdrivers, goggles and cables, according to a report that accompanied the complaint.
Investigators, led by Ben Holt from the DA’s office, subsequently recovered the phones from all the individuals arrested and uncovered encrypted-text messages and links to detailed operation plans, including a handbook called “The Do-It-Yourself Occupation Guide.”
“The communication indicated the suspects met on multiple occasions, days in advance, to conspire to commit the takeover,” the report states. “The communication included (but was not limited to) discussions about pre-operational surveillance, forcing entry into the building, using lookouts to alert suspects to responding law enforcement, wearing layered clothing and/or changing clothes in an apparent attempt to avoid being identified, bringing supplies and tools required for the attempted takeover, and practicing barricading techniques.”
The announcement comes at a time when the federal administration is cracking down on foreign students who have been participating in anti-Israel protests on college campuses across the nation. Stanford announced last week that four students have had their visas unexpectedly revoked for unknown reasons. Rosen noted that all 12 of the individuals that his office is charging are American citizens.
Even though the charges may lead to prison sentences, Rosen said he hopes that can be avoided.
“I don’t think this is a prison case,” he said. “What I would like to see happen here is that I would like these individuals to plead guilty, accept responsibility for what they did, make restitution to Stanford for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage they caused.”
An appropriate punishment, he said, would be having them work in the Sheriff’s work program, which could involve cleaning up roadways and public buildings. The damage that they caused to Building 10 forced the university to shutter the building for two months and to relocate employees during that time.
Rosen said the protesters had left the offices “literally trashed,” with furniture piled up to make barricades, property missing and documents thrown around and saturated with fake blood. One employee of the building said she was distraught to find her desk and printer broken and a photograph of her recently deceased mother and children ruined by fake blood that was splattered by the protesters.
“The way I see it, they damaged and destroyed all this property and caused all this vandalism and I think their punishment should be cleaning things up,” he said.
Even though the protesters wore face coverings, investigators were able to identify them through the brief surveillance footage that was available before the cameras were disabled and matching those images with the booking photos from the arrest. They were also able to access the encrypted messages that the protesters used, including a document showing a flow chart detailing the operation plans and messages exchanged between the protesters that helped establish who did what.
“Pouring invective on social media is not against the law,” Rosen said. “Pouring fake blood all over someone else’s workplace is.”
Rosen said that four of the 12 individuals have agreed to self-surrender and that his office expects the rest to do so soon.
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