News, protests in universities and more

The University of Southern California said Saturday that campus property was vandalized by “persons belonging to a group illegally camping on our campus.”

The Tommy Trojan statue and a fountain in Alumni Park were damaged, the university said, without elaborating on the type of damage they suffered. University officials also did not explain what led them to believe that criminals were among the participants in the demonstrations at the camp.

Video footage from CNN affiliate KABC showed the words “No to Genocide” painted on the base of the Tommy Trojan statue.

“Despite repeated warnings, this group continues to disrupt our campus activities and violate multiple university policies to harass students and others,” Joel Curran, senior vice president for communications, said in a statement.

“While the university fully supports freedom of expression, these acts of vandalism and harassment are completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Curran said.

Curran said university president Carol Fould tried to meet with the students, “but they turned down these offers.”

“We expect a more reasonable response on Sunday before we are forced to take further action,” he said. “We need this area to start early this week.”