UCPD will be releasing cell phones it has held for nearly a year, which were confiscated after arrests made during last spring’s pro-Palestine protests.

Police officers confiscated around 40 phones from people arrested at pro-Palestine protests in spring 2024 to be used as evidence in investigations for potential charges, said Cynthia Anderson-Barker, a civil rights attorney who advocated for phones to be returned to students.

Anderson-Barker said UCPD used the phones to search for evidence to link arrestees to conspiracy charges. However, it is not typical for confiscated phones to be held for a year, she said.

In May 2024, over 200 people were arrested during the police sweep of the Palestine solidarity encampment in Dickson Plaza. Subsequent pro-Palestine protests also resulted in arrests, including 43 people in Parking Structure 2 the morning before a planned pro-Palestine rally May 6, 2024.

Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office announced Friday that it would not file charges against most arrests made in April and May 2024 because of insufficient evidence.

[Related: LA City Attorney declines to file criminal charges on most arrests at encampment]

The phones were held until Feldstein Soto decided not to file charges against the protesters, a spokesperson from UCPD said in an emailed statement, adding that it is “best practice” for agencies to hold evidence.

Losing phones caused “incredible hardship” for students, Anderson-Barker said, as the arrests occurred near finals week, and students could not use their phones to study. Additionally, the replacement costs were difficult for some students, she said.

“The cost of replacing a phone is a hardship for some students,” Anderson-Barker said. “There were many reasons why I feel it was very unreasonable to keep the phones for that long.”

A spokesperson for Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA – a suspended organization involved in setting up the encampment – did not respond to a request for comment on the return of the phones.

Students will be notified of their released phones by mail, Anderson-Barker said. If a student no longer lives in the state, she added, they must find someone to designate as the authorized recipient of their phone. The authorized recipient must then bring a notarized letter of authorization to the police department to receive the phone, Anderson-Barker said.

People have 15 days from Monday to pick up their phones before they get destroyed, she said.

Anderson-Barker said she has been working to release the phones for the last year. She said she contacted Darnell Hunt, who was interim chancellor at the time, as well as Robert Swerdlow, vice chancellor for legal affairs, and Scott Scheffler, then-administrative bureau captain at UCPD – all of whom she said were not cooperative.

“They’re just making it really hard on the students – I really feel that way,” Anderson-Barker said.

Sabrina Darwish, a criminal defense attorney, took the matter to the LA Superior Court but was denied because UCPD had obtained a search warrant for the phones. Usually, she added, phones are confiscated during arrests for burglary and drug-related cases, so it was unusual to take the phones based on what the students were cited for.

Darwish said she is working with UCPD to streamline the return process.

“It was unnecessary for the phones to be confiscated. The students really needed them, and it’s been now over a year that they haven’t had them. And they couldn’t afford to buy new phones – their lives were greatly impacted by not having their phones,” Darwish said. “It was more of a harassment technique to keep the phones for no reason.”