Updated April 9, 2024 | 3:44pm PT

Claremont, CA — On Friday afternoon, Claremont Police took 20 student protesters from the Claremont Colleges into custody for occupying Pomona College President Gabrielle Starr's Alexander Hall office on Pomona College’s campus. Reportedly, 18 were charged with misdemeanor trespassing for not leaving the premises even though they had been “given directives” to leave, according to Claremont Police officer Eric Orozco. Police arrested an additional protester for failing to clear the path as police began to enter the Hall.

Those arrested were part of 100 or so protesters who showed up on Pomona College’s campus to protest Pomona College’s refusal to divest itself from entities connected to Israel’s role in the war in Gaza.

After the arrest of the students, the protesters moved to Claremont’s Police Department offices where they waited in protest until the arrested students were released one by one. Helicopters from several news sources showed up to document the proceedings.

Earlier, police agencies from Claremont, Pomona, Azusa, Covina and La Verne had stood in full riot gear in riot formation in the middle of College Ave.

And, in an even earlier action, college administration forcefully removed student artwork, eight days after students at the Claremont Colleges erected a mock apartheid wall on Marston Quad. According to a press release from the student-led advocacy organization, Pomona Divest Apartheid, the students erected the work in order to “'illuminate Pomona College's complicity in the face of an illegal occupation and genocide.”

After questioning a Pomona Police Officer why they were in the city of Claremont, we also asked, doesn’t your presence in Claremont result in a “shortage of officers in Pomona, in a city with security issues of its own.? The officer's responded, ‘take that up with your city officials.’

Julian Lucas, is a photographer, a purveyor of books, and writer, but mostly a photographer. Don’t ever ask him to take photos of events because he will charge you a lot of money. Julian is also the owner and founder of Mirrored Society Book Shop, publisher of The Pomonan, founder of Book-Store, and founder of PPABF.