5 Hours in Carnegie Hall - A Full Account of the Oct. 7 Takeover

Six months on, an extensive investigation uncovers new details about the student occupation of Pomona College’s Carnegie Hall on Oct. 7, 2024. New photos, videos, communications, and testimony paint a comprehensive picture of chaos and confrontation after the building’s unexpected takeover by anti-Israel protesters.

For nearly 40 minutes, roughly 400 students from across the Claremont Colleges had been chanting in a semicircle at the intersection of North 6th Street and College Ave., in front of Pomona’s iconic gates. On a Signal channel used for communication between rally leaders, one user asked, “When does rallying switch to smth [sic] else?” “I heard the plan was to transition around 11,” answered another. 

Beginning on September 28, a daily countdown ran on Pomona Divest from Apartheid’s (PDfA) Instagram page, marking the days until Monday, October 7, 2024. “1 year of genocide, 1 year of steadfast resistance” reads PDfA’s announcement post, “Walk out of everything, Monday 10/7, 10:07 a.m.” The posts, often collaborations with other activist groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), 7C Staff for Palestine, and Claremont Student Worker Alliance (CSWA), offered commentary on the Israel-Palestine conflict and advertised related campus events. One post denounced Pomona as a “product of genocide.” Another announced that PDfA would “answer the call of Palestinian resistance,” featuring an image of Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeidah at a military parade. A second slide captioned “REST IN POWER” memorialized Hasan Nasrallah, the notorious Hezbollah leader responsible for the deaths of thousands, including countless Syrian civilians.

Behind the scenes, organizers from PDfA and SJP had set up a network of anonymous Signal channels to organize the Monday walkout. 

These channels coordinated multiple training sessions for “flyerers” and rally leaders, in which a slideshow gave tips on how to get walk-out commitments from students. Recruiters were instructed to “be friendly, make eye contact” and ask students to walk out “with a tone of friendly urgency.” Ralliers were tasked with leading chants, handing out “bloccing” material (masks, sunglasses, keffiyehs, and hats) so students could obscure their identities. “Inside ralliers” would enter academic halls with megaphones and encourage students to walk out, and were instructed to avoid swiping their IDs to enter buildings. 

The slideshow also depicted the various routes groups would take from locations across the five colleges to a final destination, which on the slides seemed to be Pomona’s Smith Campus Center. However, throughout the slideshow and in the Signal channels, one reminder was often repeated: the final location would be announced the morning of. Organizers told participants to clear their schedules: “think of this as an all/majority-day commitment.” 

On October 6, the last in the series of countdown posts by PDfA and allied groups read, “Class is canceled. Join us for programming at Refaat Alareer University, 10:07AM-4PM.”

Initial Rally

The morning of October 7, PDfA posted the final location on their Instagram: the intersection of 6th and College, which had been the site of at least one other divestment-related protest in the previous year. 

At 10:07 a.m., students began to walk out of classes. A small group of “blocced” students waited near the intersection with large signs. Slowly, the sound of chanting grew louder, and new parades of protesters streamed into the intersection from every direction. While some protestors were dressed nearly entirely in black, with long-sleeved clothes, masks, sunglasses, and scarves covering their faces, others wore only a mask and everyday clothing. Most only chanted, while others brought signs reading “Long live the Intifada,” “1 yr genocide, free Palestine,” “Repression breeds Resistance,” and “Fuck Jeff Parks!” Parks is a Pomona trustee and co-chair of the Investments Committee.

The growing crowd blocked passing cars, with only an LA County FIRE Department paramedic’s truck being let through. Campus Safety soon started redirecting traffic away from the intersection as the protesters began to take up most of the street. Cars on College Ave. that had been waiting to cross turned around, departing in the other direction.

Accurate to the  organizer’s plans, by 11:30 a.m. all rally groups had arrived, some estimates counting as many as 500 attendees. Watching the protesting students were a handful of Campus Safety officers, Pomona administrators, and a group of faculty. In and around the crowd, orange-vested and “blocced” Claremont Undercurrents staff took pictures and recorded, as did other reporters and curious students. Undercurrents has been described by PDfA as “allied journalists,” and was the only media publication allowed inside their May 2024 encampment. Only one counterprotester appeared: an elderly man who shouted at the crowd for a few minutes before engaging in an agitated conversation with some students. An ABC 7 news helicopter hovered overhead. 

Around 10:50am, the group paused their chanting and protest organizers began to address the crowd. Organizers spoke about the war in Gaza and what they described as repression by Pomona administrators. After nearly 15 minutes, the speaker instructed the crowd to start moving south on College Ave.

The group assembled into a column, chanting as they slowly made their way down College Ave., taking a right at the southern end of Pearsons Hall, where the column made a loop around the Stanley Academic Quad. Around this time, the fountain at the center of the quad was symbolically dyed red, something protesters have done several times over the past year. 

Having completed a loop of the Quad, the front of the column marched back onto College Ave. towards Carnegie Hall. Once gathered in front of the building, they began to climb the stairs.

Carnegie

Carnegie Hall is one of Pomona’s most recognizable buildings. It sits on the western end of Marston Quad, its east-facing neoclassical portico often the foreground of sunset pictures taken by students walking up and down College Way in the evening. Carnegie is also home to the Economics and Politics departments, two of Pomona's most popular majors.

As the column of protestors approached, the building’s two academic coordinators stood on the portico, watching. At 11:11 a.m., the protestors began to climb up the steps of the building. On either side of the main entrance, the coordinators briefly tried to hold off the group, even standing in front of the ID card reader. As dozens of masked students massed at the door and hundreds more gathered behind them, the coordinators stepped aside, ending their brief and hopeless defense of the building. For a few moments, the protesters remained outside, unwilling to unlock the doors by swiping their ID. After about a minute, the door was opened from inside by an unidentified middle-aged woman. Two campus safety officers tried to hold back the crowd, but were pushed aside. One of the officers rolled her ankle. 

By 11:15 a.m., well over 100 protesters had streamed into the building, quickly taking over the first floor lobby. Inside, professors were at work in their offices and classes were underway, well-attended despite the walkout. 

Those already inside the building were caught completely off guard by the arrival of protestors. As the masked crowd poured in, they continued to chant and make noise. In groups of two, protest organizers entered classrooms and interrupted teaching, loudly telling those inside to leave the building. One professor told their class, “We can’t really have class right now, you are welcome to leave.” A handful of students, not knowing if they would be let through the intimidating crowd, and not wanting to push their way through, chose to exit the building by climbing out of a window in their classroom. 

“We couldn’t leave because they were in the building blocking the doors and everything. I wasn’t going to walk through the middle of it… I wouldn’t have felt very safe walking through hundreds of people yelling things that [I], especially as a Jewish student, don’t align with or feel safe around,” one of the students told the Independent.

Other students who had been part of the rally and march remained outside Carnegie in a semi-circle in front of the building, watching the students leave through windows while their peers flooded in.

On the steps, a protest leader announced through a megaphone that Carnegie Hall was now “Refaat Alareer University,” in honor of a Palestinian poet killed during the war in Gaza. They continued, claiming that those inside the building were free to leave at any time through the west entrance in the basement. “This is not an occupation,” the speaker said, “we are leaving at 4 p.m.”

Takeover

Students, staff, and faculty were not the only people in Carnegie caught off guard by the invasion of the building. In two basement classrooms, high schoolers were participating in a workshop with Pomona admissions staff. 

Perspectives on Pomona, colloquially known as POP, flies in predominantly first-generation and low-income high school students from around the country to explore Pomona. They are paired with a current student, living in their dorm room and going to classes for a few days. In anticipation of the walk-out, the program’s organizers changed the schedule so that the POP participants wouldn’t be in classes, where disruption was likely. Instead, admissions staff put together other activities, including the workshops in Carnegie.

For nearly 20 minutes, the prospective students and staff leading the workshops remained inside basement classrooms before being led out of the West entrance. 

The east entrance remained open and guarded by a few protesters for around 20 minutes after the protesters entered, but was then zip-tied and barricaded with plywood from the inside. One campus safety officer remained near the entrance on the portico. At the west basement entrance, which the protestors designated as the only exit point, Pomona administrators held one door open while a handful of protesters stood in the doorway, the confrontation lasting throughout the building’s occupation. Downstairs in the basement, the north and south doorways were zip-tied shut from the inside, and protesters locked the one closed west entrance door in place with a door-stopping device intended to seal-off access in an active shooter situation. 

In an effort to de-escalate the situation, Pomona administrators approached faculty known to be affiliated with the divestment movement and asked them to speak to the protesters and get them to remove zip-ties from the doors. If the zip-ties remained on the doors, any person could call Claremont Emergency Services and notify them of a fire code violation, potentially leading to a serious escalation of the incident and police intervention. The faculty, who had been watching the protest since the start of the rally, told the administrator they had no influence over the students. The zip-ties remained in place.

At the west entrance, which became the only point of contact between protesters and administrators throughout the building’s occupation, Pomona’s Assistant Vice President for Facilities and Campus Services Bob Robinson and a colleague engaged in a heated discussion with protesters. Rhonda Beron, one of the building’s administrative assistants, was apparently trapped in her office. “She’s called us three times, afraid to come out of the room,” Robinson told protestors, who were adamant that anyone could leave the building. “You’re harming the wrong people,” the other administrator told them.

Robinson, visibly upset, then pressed a Scripps Voice reporter and a Claremont Independent reporter on their credentials. The Scripps Voice later condemned the incident as physical intimidation. PDfA would later attack Robinson personally on Instagram.

As the building filled in with protestors and others filtered out, the temperature inside rose substantially. Most of the protesters coming into the building had been at the rally in 90 degree heat, many of them dressed in black. Only 10 minutes into the takeover, Carnegie’s hallways smelled strongly of sweat.

The “White Man on the Stairs”

As protestors established control of the building, with the bulk of its previous occupants gone, a message popped up in one of the Signal channels, inquiring about the “white man on the stairs.”

Working in his office since earlier that morning, W. Bowman “Bo” Cutter, a Pomona economics professor, was trying to finish some work before a slate of office hours. He hadn’t paid attention to the announcements made in the days leading up to October 7. Cutter’s office is in a small hallway behind an alcove on the second floor of Carnegie, well isolated from where protestors were entering the building. With his door closed and his mind focused on the day’s work, Cutter didn’t realize the building had been taken over until he left his office around 11:30 to go to the restroom. 

“There were a whole bunch of students milling around,” said Cutter in an interview with the Independent, “but it wasn’t that organized.” There were enough students, though, that both the second and first floor bathroom were inaccessible, so Cutter went to the basement. “Once I came out, then it was starting to get more organized, but nobody stopped me coming up from the basement to the first floor. I definitely got some looks,” he added.

As he ascended the main staircase on the first floor, Cutter saw a female campus safety officer ahead of him with protestors crowded around her. Some had put their hands on the officer, and Cutter saw her stumble on the stairs. Cutter described it as a “rowdy” scene. As he continued up the stairs and neared the top, one protestor, who Cutter described as a “lieutenant,” organized a blockade of the staircase, with dozens of protesters, all “blocced,” crowded at the top of the stairs in front of Cutter and the Campus Safety officer. 

“They were really getting in my face, saying all kinds of nasty stuff, crowding in,” recalls Cutter, adding “these were definitely the more aggressive students.” For about 20 minutes, Cutter, trying to get back to his office, stood a step above the Campus Safety officer. The officer was trying to calm the situation down as protesters remained rowdy, periodically yelling at Cutter from up close. At one point, another protester came in and further organized the blockade, getting them to settle down somewhat. 

Now more disciplined, the protesters did not respond for some time as Cutter asked them to let him go to his office so he could get his phone and laptop before leaving. After expressing his discomfort to the Campus Safety officer, video shows one protestor offering him fruit snacks as others laugh in the background. Cutter recalls standing on the steps with the protestors and Campus Safety officer in relative silence for around an hour. The two chatted and got to know each other as protestors stood silently and filmed their conversation. In the middle of one conversation, as Cutter remarked to the officer that campus protests used to be more peaceful and respectful, the group, which at this point practically surrounded them, broke into chanting. The officer occasionally spoke to her colleagues over the phone. The two stood on one side of the stairs, which are split in two by a handrail. At one point, Cutter went down to the landing to try and go up from the other side, but the protesters shifted to block him. 

Behind the blockading protesters stood a larger male figure, described by Cutter as “confident and in-control,” who appeared to be the “boss,” directing traffic and giving other protesters instructions. The figure also rotated protesters in and out of the blockade as they got tired. Video shows protesters asking each other, “Do you need to be tapped out?” As time went by, Cutter noticed the protesters making a “concerted effort” to limit visibility into the back of the second floor. Some held up signs from the rally, while one protester, her head wrapped in a bright red keffiyeh and eyes covered by oversized sunglasses, held a piece of paper reading “you are free to LEAVE AT ANY TIME” with a clumsily drawn heart underneath. 

Indeed, Cutter and the officer likely could have left through the designated doorway in the basement, but Cutter did not want to leave without his phone and laptop, which remained in his office. Not knowing how long the building would be occupied, Cutter said he needed his things so he could contact his family and keep working somewhere else. The Campus Safety officer stayed with Cutter for his safety. “I feel more comfortable with you here,” he tells her in an exchange captured on video. One protester pressed the officer on why she was there. “This is my job,” she answered, “I have to work in order to provide for my family.”

“You guys can walk out the building right now,” one protester told them. “But he needs his phone,” the officer replied. “And laptop,” added Cutter, “I have to prep classes for tomorrow, because I work.” In an earlier conversation between Cutter and the officer, captured on video, Cutter adds that he won’t leave without his stuff, and that, out of principle, he wouldn’t be bullied into leaving the building. 

Occasionally, Cutter and the officer would negotiate with the protesters. One offer made was that the protesters would retrieve Cutter’s things from his locked office for him, which he rejected, saying there was no way he would let them into his office. Both Cutter and the officer repeatedly insisted they would leave only once Cutter had retrieved his belongings.

In one tense exchange, protesters began to lecture Cutter. One of them explained that, as “someone with a PhD,” he had an obligation to “use his power in the right direction, such as, you know, truth and love.” Cutter and the officer had spoken to each other about their shared Christian faith in an earlier conversation. “We both believe in truth, love, and compassion,” he answered, “so we would welcome you to pray for peace in Palestine which I do everyday.” The protesters raised their voices and spoke over each other. “Prayer isn’t a solution,” one yelled, with Cutter responding “prayer is the only solution.” “You are an educator, and I believe in the power of education,” said another. “The power of Christ is far greater,” Cutter replied.

Interrupting the exchange, the Campus Safety officer asked for two chairs. Since the beginning of the stairway confrontation, she had told the protesters as well as Cutter that her ankle was injured from being jostled by protesters as they entered the building. The protesters responded with mocking disbelief. Eventually one brought an ice pack, telling the officer, “Here’s an ice pack because you lied about your ankle.”

Two chairs were brought to the stairs, while one protestor joked that a book about Palestine should be brought over too, so that Cutter and the officer could read it. Again, a protester, filming with her phone held above her head, pressed the pair about their “choosing” to remain in the building. “I have a question,” the officer said, “do you have people at home who care about you? Because he (Cutter) has people he needs to contact at home.”

The conversation then returned to religion; protesters above the landing told Cutter that “Jesus would be standing behind [them]” in condemnation of the “Israeli genocide.” On the landing, next to Cutter and the Campus Safety officer, a protestor wearing a balaclava and skeleton-print hoodie replied, “No, actually they killed Jesus,” referencing the myth of Jewish deicide, or the antisemitic trope that Jews are collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. “True!” shouted another protester, “Fuck your Jesus!”

That exchange was one of the more shocking moments Cutter experienced while confined to the stairwell. “One thing that I kind of noted later was there were a lot of students in that building. [The campus safety officer] made clear that she was injured, and made clear that there were family reasons I needed to get in and get my stuff. Not a single one of the students in there came in and said, “Hey, what you guys are doing is wrong. At least let the injured officer out, let the professor get his stuff. What are you doing?” There was none of that,” Cutter told the Independent.

“There was a funny exchange towards the end,” recalled Cutter. The building was hot and stuffy, and some protesters were complaining about their masks. “One of them said, ‘Well you can’t take your masks off. Then they’ll figure out who we are and we won’t get jobs.’ This is the most important thing in the world but you still have to get your consulting job, right?” Cutter laughed. 

Refaat Alareer University

While Cutter and protesters faced off on the stairs, Carnegie Hall was transformed into Refaat Alareer University. A banner bearing the name and a Palestinian flag was unfurled from an upstairs window. In classrooms emptied of their usual classes, organizers began teach-ins. In Room 107, organizers taught a class on the “History of Palestinian Resistance,” while the library was designated a “quiet room.” “Hanging out and talking,” an organizer explained over a megaphone, was in Room 214.

Protestors sat in chairs and on the floor of Room 107, Carnegie’s largest classroom, as organizers gave rosy descriptions of Palestinian resistance to Israel, including acts of terrorism. Usually scheduled in Room 107 at that time was POLI090, Statistics for Politics and International Relations. When a Claremont Independent reporter approached the open door to the room, she was called out by a protester guarding the door as a “threat.”

The protesters arranged for delivery of over 15 pizzas from Blaze Pizza, and also ate snacks. Water cooler tanks were also removed from coolers, protesters writing on one of them in sharpie, “Intifada, From the River to the Sea,” and “CPD, KKK, IOF they’re all the same.” (CPD refers to the Claremont Police Department, and IOF—Israeli Occupation Forces—is a pejorative for the Israel Defense Forces.)

The most radical symbol of Carnegie’s transformation into Refaat Alareer University was the extensive vandalism throughout the building. In classrooms, podium computer displays were broken and thrown on the ground, and soda was poured onto computers and audio jacks. Wires to computers and projectors were cut, and a projection screen was slashed. On the first floor, plaques commemorating the academic achievements of Pomona students were keyed over. In a copy room, protesters smashed a printer and threw it on the ground.

Graffiti in red spray paint was scrawled across the walls and floors of Carnegie. “Intifada” was written on the walls of the round basement lobby of the politics department, while “From the River to the Sea” ran over 20 feet along a stairway. In an upstairs classroom, protesters graffitied “Free Palestine” into the carpet, while in the basement, they wrote “Fuck Pomona” onto the slashed projector screen. The elevator was vandalized with a message of “Intifada.” 

In one of the building’s kitchens, protestors cut live electrical wires to certain appliances, leaving what eyewitnesses described as “scorch marks.” The cutting of live wires may have created a significant risk of fire, jeopardizing the safety of the protesters and others in the building as most exits remained barricaded, zip-tied, or clamped shut.  

The Independent has been able to establish that most vandalism occurred later in the building’s occupation, when more ‘casual’ protesters had already left the building. The vandalism, including the cutting of live wires, would only be discovered by Pomona administrators as they entered the building once all protesters had left.

Preparing for a Siege

Between 2 and 3 p.m., one of the workshops running in the downstairs classrooms was titled “Protest Safety and Pig Fighting.”

The last time student protesters entered a Pomona building was on April 5, 2024, when students took over President Gabi Starr’s office in Alexander Hall. In response, Pomona College called the police, who arrived in riot gear and arrested 20 students. The dramatic scenes became national news, while setting a precedent for Pomona calling the police on students. 

Almost a month later, students set up an encampment on Marston Quad shortly before Pomona’s commencement, forcing Pomona to find an alternate venue in Los Angeles. Police were not called to clear the encampment, unlike what happened at some U.S. universities. Police also weren’t called in response to students protesting and blocking Pomona’s convocation ceremony in August, despite new Pomona policies indicating they would have disruptive protestors refusing to identify themselves arrested.

Nevertheless, PDfA organizers were prepared for the possibility of police’s arrival. During the April sit-in, the arrested protesters offered minimal resistance to the police, and events largely proceeded peacefully despite a tense atmosphere and over 100 students protesting outside the building. 

From the evidence left after the workshop ended, it appears PDfA did not intend for a police intervention to proceed peacefully this time. 

In a first floor classroom on the building’s north side, diagrams resembling football formations had been drawn on a whiteboard. Red circles labeled “pigs” and black circles labeled “us” were drawn in formation facing each other, while “push” and “pull” and arrows faced the formations. Another diagram showed a v-formation pushing forward. 

Carnegie’s layout, as well as the paths around the building, were shown in another, with Xs designating College officials or police and a circle at each entrance showing protester control. A similar diagram showed what may have been a classroom surrounded by Xs, with protesters inside. 

Booklets titled “De-Arrest Primer” were distributed during the workshop. The booklet, which gives instructions to protesters on how to free someone from law enforcement, is also available online. “Tactics” listed in the booklet include assaulting police officers, which the authors admit may be seen as a crime: “For breaking the grip, try striking [the law enforcement officer]. All that being said you can see why this can get construed as assault in court.” Other tactics listed in the booklet include freeing arrested protesters by opening police car doors and harassing police until they free detained protesters.

“Every de-arrest is a micro-intifada,” concludes the booklet, which warns that a “pacified” protest can be “steam-rolled” by law enforcement, whereas a violent crowd “makes officers think twice” about using force.

At the West entrance, Brandon Jackson told the Independent that staff would not “physically escalate” the situation. “We wouldn’t do that to the students,” Jackson said. Asked about law enforcement intervention, Jackson said it was not his decision to make. “I am sharing all the information I’m gathering here up the ladder as it goes,” said Josh Eisenberg.

Ultimately, police were never present at the scene. Pomona College and Campus Safety did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

Guests and Visitors

After the main doors to the building were shut, the vast majority of the building's occupants were protestors and Undercurrents reporters. Besides Cutter and the Campus Safety officer on the stairs however, other non-protestors remained in the building or gained access during its occupation.

Mykle Parker PZ ‘99, a free-lance photographer, had been following Palestine-related events at the Claremont Colleges since they began. In the days before October 7, she had commented on PDFA Instagram posts inquiring about the situation on campus. On the morning of October 7, she came to the rally wearing black clothes and a mask, taking pictures from inside the crowd of protestors.

As the crowd neared Carnegie, Parker says she went up the steps in order to get a better angle for her camera. “I was at the front as the two Campus Security officers attempted to stop [protesters]from going through the door.  I was one of the first inside with campus security and the students,” Parker told the Independent in an email. She had no prior knowledge of plans to enter the building, and believed at first that the protesters would just “pass through.”

Parker described the atmosphere inside as “the Disneyland of Protest.” “It was a polite, considerate, respectful atmosphere and everyone sat down on the second level. It was just chill.” Parker says she did not witness any vandalism, but left before the protest had ended. 

A small group of students also entered the building in the afternoon, breaking through the west entrance, where protesters guarding the door initially tried to stop them but eventually let them through. The students explored the building, some taking photos and videos. Two students filmed a TikTok on the stairs, with Cutter visible in the background.

One Jewish Pomona student tried to speak to protesters, explaining why he thought it was disrespectful for them to protest on October 7, a day of mourning for many Jews.

Video taken in Carnegie Hall shows the student speaking with Parker on the second floor, just past the wall of protesters blocking Cutter on the stairs. Parker explains in the video that she initially didn’t plan on coming to the protest because she also found the date disrespectful, but changed her mind when she heard of Scripps’ closure of the Motley Coffeehouse.

The Pomona student later told the Independent that as he spoke to a protester about wanting more dialogue on campus. “That’s great, me too, and I’d love to have dialogue with you,” the protester said to him, “but next time please don’t come to our protest asking for dialogue.” The student could not follow up on the invitation to talk, because the protester had concealed their identity. 

Some of the students left from the west entrance, as did Parker, while some left through windows in the basement.

Parker would later discover that she had been permanently banned from the Claremont Colleges for trespassing on October 7. After taking pictures at a “Faculty for Justice in Palestine” rally in early December, she was followed by Campus Safety and told she had been banned from the campuses. Parker told the Independent she had not received any notice of the ban prior to that interaction.

Neon Green Hats

Beginning at 10 a.m., a small group of individuals wearing neon green hats watched the day’s events. The hats, upon closer inspection, read “National Lawyers Guild Legal Observer.” 

The legal observers, most of whom were identified as faculty members of the Claremont Colleges, watched the mass of protestors as they rallied at the intersection of College Ave. and 6th Street and remained present until protesters left the Carnegie building. 

One observer filmed and took notes on interactions between Pomona administrators and protestors at the West entrance. “So, as a legal observer, [protesters] violating the law is not what you’re observing; you’re observing us possibly violating their legal rights?” Eisenberg asked one observer. The observer did not respond.

Another one of the observers, later identified as Scripps Associate Professor Jih-Fei Cheng, questioned and began to argue with Claremont Independent reporters before CMC Professor Heather Ferguson, also acting as a legal observer, told him to stop.

Independent reporters tried to ask the observers about what training they had received and what their responsibilities were, but did not receive answers. The National Lawyers Guild, which was created in the 1930s as a progressive alternative to the American Bar Association, created the Legal Observer program in the late 1960s. Being a legal observer requires no legal experience. According to the organization’s website, legal observers receive training. 

Closing Time

Protesters trickled out of the building throughout its occupation, with many leaving less than an hour into the takeover. As they left, Pomona administrators filmed them on their cell phones, though records indicate that no student was identified through these videos. 

By 3 p.m., the mood around Carnegie had settled into a lull, and less than 50 protesters remained inside the building. The Campus Safety officer with Cutter received instructions to look around the building, so together they went down the stairs and through Carnegie, seeing for the first time the vandalism and zip-tied doors. Going upstairs using the back stairway, they were finally able to access Cutter’s office.

Around 3:10 p.m., protesters began removing materials which had been blocking the east entrance, and appeared to assemble in the lobby. They then disbanded again, reappearing in the basement. At 3:30 p.m., the fully “blocced” protesters lined up at the west entrance and began trying to leave the building. Pomona administrators blocked the doorway and requested that the protesters provide identification before leaving. 

The group began to press into Dean Josh Eisenberg and Associate Dean Brandon Jackson, who tried to keep protesters inside, while Dean Tracy Arwari and the Campus Safety officer stood aside. Footage shows Jackson and Eisenberg physically holding back protesters as they pressed into the administrators. Jackson and Eisenberg quickly gave up as protesters began to squeeze through. “Guys, we need IDs please,” Jackson said in vain as protesters pushed past him. Cutter says he saw Arwari “bashed” into the door during the push.

The protesters left together towards the academic quad before splitting off into smaller groups. 

Administrators and staff, including personnel from Pomona’s facilities department, then headed into Carnegie, discovering for the first time the extent of vandalism in the building. Student journalists who entered the building after protesters left were soon told to leave the building. From outside, administrators could be seen tearing down posters and flyers left behind. Hung from a second floor window, a banner reading “Refaat Alareer University” soon disappeared. 

By sundown, a paper taped to the glass on the east entrance door read, “Carnegie is closed until further notice. Access by faculty can be accomplished by contacting campus safety.”

Greta Long, Charlie Hatcher, and Kendall White contributed reporting.