4 UC Berkeley students arrested on felony vandalism charges for anti-TPUSA art installation
Update 11/10/2025: This article has been updated to include the number of students arrested and the details of their arrest.
UCPD arrested four students early Monday morning for felony vandalism, according to information from campus administrators.
The individuals were arrested while attempting to hang an approximately five-foot-tall cardboard bug off Sather Gate in protest of Turning Point USA’s, or TPUSA, upcoming event on campus.
The students, three of whom appear to be undergraduates, were booked in Santa Rita County Jail, where they remain awaiting bail of $20,000 each for three individuals and $10,000 for the other.
While the UCPD arrest report cites Penal Code §594(b)(1), or felony vandalism, booking records from Santa Rita County Jail cite the arrest charge more broadly, under code §594(a)(1), or “defaces with graffiti or other inscribed material.”
Felony vandalism in California dictates damage to property totaling over $400.
While the students have not yet been charged by the Alameda County District Attorney, their arraignment hearing has been set for Thursday at 9 a.m. at Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland.
The demonstrators had posted posters with racist, misogynistic, and otherwise inflammatory quotes from TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk on the gate, who was killed on a college campus exactly two months ago.
“Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously,” read one of the posters quoting Kirk.
The demonstration precedes a controversial TPUSA event on campus today. Several groups have already announced plans to protest the sold-out, 2,000-seat event scheduled for 6:30 p.m. this evening in Zellerbach Hall.
As demonstrators attempted to string up the installation, it seems likely that the installation violated time, place and manner, or TPM, regulations, which prohibit individuals from physically obstructing or attaching anything to Sather Gate. Violating TPM violations are not, in themselves, criminal offenses; however, the associated actions may be considered a crime, according to campus policy.
While UCPD officers removed the bug, the individuals had pasted posters around the gate advertising a planned 4:30 p.m. protest. One sign read, “Hate is NOT welcome on our campus!”
Demonstrators also wrote, “Trans rights! You can erase our chalk but you can’t erase us” in blue and pink chalk under the gate above a drawing of a transgender pride flag.
Campus spokespeople did not provide a statement on the students’ arrests.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
