When University of California police arrested Beckner-Carmitchel while he was filming UC police arresting students in a UCLA parking garage, that arrest violated Section 409.7, Sean’s First Amendment right to film police, and his Fourth Amendment right to be free of unlawful arrests. After I fired off a quick email to UCLA police, the school’s comms department, and the UC administration that Sean’s arrest and jailing violated Section 409.7, UCLA released him later that day. So the law worked to free Sean, but he should have never been arrested and jailed in the first place.

They also took away his cellphone, but I told UCLA that using a search warrant to search his phone would be illegal, and they gave it back within a few hours.

At the University of Southern California, the campus police and Los Angeles Police Department violated Section 409.7 earlier this month when they blocked student journalists and faculty from filming the police raid on the encampment and threatened to take away some of the students’ press passes.

However, Section 409.7 worked very well on May 15, 2024, at UC Irvine, where the press office worked closely with the local law enforcement to make sure journalists had access.

Can you explain why Section 409.7 was enacted and what it does? And tell us about any cases you’re aware of where California journalists have invoked it to try to prevent law enforcement from dispersing them from protests. Has it worked, and why or why not?

Reporters pushed for the passage of Section 409.7 after many reporters were arrested, shoved, and shot with munitions by police while covering the Black Lives Matter protests (in 2020).

Before it was passed, California law said that reporters were legally permitted to cross behind police lines during public disasters without being arrested, but it didn’t say anything about public protests where police declared an unlawful assembly and ordered everyone to disperse. So some reporters were getting arrested for failure to disperse when they were filming protests and police.

Section 409.7 says that where police “establish a police line, or rolling closure at a demonstration, march, protest, or rally where individuals are engaged in activity” protected by the First Amendment and California Constitution, a “duly authorized representative of any news service, online news service, newspaper, or radio or television station or network may enter the closed areas.” The law says that police cannot arrest reporters for “failure to disperse,” violating a curfew, or filming police.

If a reporter is arrested, the reporter has the right “to contact a supervisory officer immediately for the purpose of challenging the detention, unless circumstances make it impossible to do so.”

Section 409.7 doesn’t prevent police from “enforcing other applicable laws if the person is engaged in activity that is unlawful.”

Big Pond  was a big deal at Santa Anita Park over the winter, winning the Feb. 18 Spring Fever Stakes in fast time after a nose defeat when second in the Dec. 26 La Brea Stakes (G1).

Now George Krikorian’s homebred 4-year-old daughter of Mr. Big   battles five East Coast rivals in the $175,000 Vagrancy Stakes (G3) May 18 at Aqueduct Racetrack. Her principal foes in the 6 1/2-furlong dirt sprint are stakes winners Hot Fudge , Leave No Trace , and Beguine .

Saturday’s race marks Big Pond’s first start for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott and her second outside California, where she was foaled. All seven of her prior starts previously came for trainer Tim Yakteen, including a recent seventh in the April 6 Madison Stakes (G1) at Keeneland that came after an awkward start. She recorded three wins and two seconds for Yakteen.

KEM Stables’ Hot Fudge, a three-time stakes winner over the winter at Aqueduct, will attempt to rebound from a fifth-place finish in the April 6 Distaff Stakes (G3).

“In her last race, she stumbled away from the gates, grabbed a quarter badly and pulled a shoe off and ran last,” trainer Linda Rice said.

Leave No Trace, a March 17 allowance optional claiming winner, seeks her first stakes victory since taking the Spinaway Stakes (G1) in September 2022. Beguine returns to action after running fourth in the Oct. 1 Gallant Bloom Stakes (G2).

Police arrested at least a dozen anti-Israel protestors as they cleared a lecture hall and student encampment at the University of California, Irvine. 

The University put out an emergency alert on Wednesday declaring a ‘violent protest’ after ‘a group of several hundred protestors entered the UC Irvine campus and began surrounding’ the Physical Sciences Lecture Hall. 

Officers from ten nearby law-enforcement agencies converged on the campus in riot gear, clashing with protestors and clearing the encampment. 

At least a dozen students were arrested, according to CNN, with many being secured with zip ties and led away by officers.  

‘The police have retaken the lecture hall,’ UC Irvine spokesperson Tom Vasich said, ‘The plaza has been cleared by law-enforcement officers.’

Vasich said there were a ‘minimal number of arrests’ and characterized the protesters as ‘begrudgingly cooperative.’

It took about four hours for police to eject the protesters from both the lecture hall and the plaza that had been the site of the encampment.

Shortly before nightfall, officers moved in on the lecture hall and engaged in a tense standoff with protesters at the encampment.

Helmeted police wielding batons formed a line against protesters. They gradually moved forward, pushing the students back every few minutes, until the officers rushed the crowd and made more arrests.

Most demonstrators then retreated and police held the otherwise empty plaza strewn with trash while a few onlookers remained at the periphery.

Twelve protestors were arrested, according to CNN, with many secured with zip ties and led away

There was already an encampment at the university that had been there since April 29

The university said all classes would be held remotely on Thursday, asking employees not to come to campus.

The demonstration at Irvine, about 40 miles south of Los Angeles, is the latest in a series of campus protests across the United States over the war in Gaza.

Activists have called for a ceasefire and the protection of civilian lives while demanding universities divest from Israeli interests.

UC Irvine protesters had established an encampment adjacent to the lecture hall on April 29 similar to those at other universities that have led to mass arrests and clashes with police elsewhere in the country.

On Wednesday 200 to 300 protesters took over the lecture hall at a time when no classes were in session, Vasich said.

Hundreds of anti-Israel protestors descended on the campus on Wednesday afternoon, taking over a lecture hall

Police responded in riot gear and formed a barricade while an officer on a loudspeaker warned the crowd that they had formed an unlawful assembly and risked arrest if they remained, the Orange County Register reported.

Students chanted slogans, banged drums and hoisted banners, with rows of police standing nearby. 

One banner hung from the building declared the site ‘Alex Odeh Hall,’ in honor of a Palestinian activist who was killed in a 1985 office bombing in the nearby city of Santa Ana.

Four adjacent research buildings with potentially hundreds of people inside were locked down, and those inside were instructed to shelter in place.

Since the day the encampment began, Chancellor Howard Gillman said the university has been in talks with students but has been unable to reach an agreement to find an ‘appropriate and non-disruptive’ alternative site.

Protestors are calling for a ceasefire and for the university to divest from Israeli interests

Students chanted slogans, banged drums and hoisted banners, with rows of police standing nearby

Gillman has said the university cannot selectively decide not to enforce rules against the illegal encampment and that ‘The University of California has made it clear it will not divest from Israel.’

‘Encampment protesters have focused most of their demands on actions that would require the university to violate the academic freedom rights of faculty, the free speech rights of faculty and fellow students, and the civil rights of many of our Jewish students,’ Gillman said on Monday. 

Protests have swept university campuses across the country over the past month with classes shut down and hundreds arrested starting at Columbia.