Occupy UCLA Crops up on Campus With 25 Tents: School Warns it Probably Won't be Tolerated

Occupy UCLA Facebook

Occupy L.A.'s 400-plus tent encampment, which some have speculated is the largest Occupy village in the nation now that the movements in Oakland and Manhattan have been ejected, has some competition on the Westside.

A group of students calling itself Occupy Take Back UCLA has set up camp in the middle of campus --at Wilson Plaza to be exact.

According to a UCLA Newsroom tweet ...

Student protesters have put up about 25 tents in UCLA's Wilson Plaza.

UCLA indicates that the encampment probably won't be tolerated too late into the night:

Although the posting encouraged students to bring tents and warm clothes, campus officials were in contact with organizers to convey that encampments would violate a midnight-to-6 a.m. curfew and policies restricting temporary structures.

Good luck, kids.

[Update shortly after 9 p.m. Thursday]: UCLA spokesman Steve Ritea reaffirmed to the Weekly late today that the protesters are not welcome overnight:

We respect that the university is a place to express themselves a place for free speech, but we also work to balance that against the rights of the rest of the campus to be free of disruptions ... We do have policies against encampments and an overnight curfew and we tend to enforce those policies. I can't say exactly how or when that will be enforced but it will be enforced.

The UCLA Daily Bruin reports that protest organizers are asking for volunteers to be arrested when the cops arrive. The Occupy group was meeting at 9 p.m. tonight.

[Update No. 2]: At 5:15 a.m. UCLA police told protesters to disperse, the school says. About 40 people did. Fourteen who didn't were arrested for alleged "failure to disperse" and the plaza was cleared by 6 a.m. UCLA states:

Those arrested were expected to be cited and released from the UCLA police station after being processed, provided they have valid identification and no criminal record.

A UCLA spokesman said it wasn't clear if protesters planned to return today.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com/@LAWeeklyNews]