UC Irvine protest: Newport Beach mayor claps back at Irvine mayor’s tweet over ‘violent scenario’

Scores of law enforcement personnel from various agencies descended on UC Irvine on Wednesday to move hundreds of demonstrators protesting the treatment of Palestinians and the UC system’s investments in Israeli interests. After his city’s police department responded to a request for mutual aid at the Orange County campus Wednesday, Newport Beach Mayor Will O’Neill took umbrage at a social media post by Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan, who asked the college administration to avoid a “violent scenario” with the protests. The UC Irvine administration put out a call for police agencies from across Orange County to join the Irvine Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department “as protesters swarmed the campus joining a group of protesters who had established an encampment on the campus,” the university said Wednesday afternoon in an emergency bulletin. O’Neill said in an emailed statement to The Times on Thursday that Khan’s “preemptive insult” to the police agencies who responded to the request for law enforcement on campus was “reckless and ill-advised.” He’s asked for clarification or an apology to the Newport Beach Police Department, but said he hasn’t heard from the city of Irvine. “Her words, though, will not stop the Newport Beach Police Department from providing mutual aid to the good residents of Irvine in the event that assistance is required again,” O’Neill said.