Posted on November 9, 2016

Trump Win Sparks Student Walkouts and Angry Protests Across California

Matt Hamilton et al., Los Angeles Times, November 9, 2016

Protests of Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election took place across California on Wednesday, with students at several Bay Area high schools walking out in the middle of class.

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At Berkeley High School, about 1,500 students–half the entire student body–walked out of class after first period began at 8 a.m., Berkeley Unified School District officials said.

Students tweeted “#NotMyPresident” and pledged to unify. Others chanted, “Si, se puede,”Spanish for “Yes, we can,” and waved Mexican flags, according to posts on social media.

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Earlier in the day, after Trump delivered his victory speech in New York, an estimated 2,000 people rallied at UCLA, where two separate demonstrations merged into one, said UCLA police Sgt. Miguel Banuelos.

The group marched from the campus through Westwood Village to a federal building on Wilshire Boulevard, Banuelos said. {snip}

The demonstration peaked about 1 a.m., when a Trump piñata was set on fire in a trash can outside a Westwood Boulevard store.

The small blaze aside, no major incidents were reported, and police said the crowd was peaceful.

N.J. Omorogieva, 19, said she was “heartbroken” by the election’s result when she spotted the crowd in Westwood while walking home.

“Of course, I joined in,” she said. “To give hugs to people who were overcome by devastation.”

In downtown L.A., anger simmered as a crowd gathered near City Hall. Some property was defaced, including a fence scrawled with graffiti insulting Trump.

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In Oakland, demonstrators smashed a window at the Oakland Tribune newsroom and ignited trash containers and tires, police said. Small fires also prompted the closure of a Bay Area Rapid Transit station.

The crowd broke windows on five businesses and further vandalized another, said Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson. {snip}

Protesters also burned Trump in effigy, KNTV reported.

Protests in the Bay Area city were centered downtown and there was a march along Highway 24, where a woman was struck by an SUV. She was rushed to the hospital with “major injuries,” California Highway Patrol Sgt. Matt Langford told the San Francisco Chronicle.

At UC Santa Barbara, hundreds marched near the campus, with some chanting, “Not my president. Not my president.”

One person carried a Mexican flag, according to video posted by the student newspaper, the Daily Nexus.

About 500 students marched through the La Jolla campus of UC San Diego, protesting Trump’s win and chanting his name with an expletive.

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