UC Davis Protest for Animal Rights Ends in 32 Arrests

DAVIS — Thirty-two people, including three juveniles, were arrested Sunday during an animal rights protest at UC Davis.

Protesters began their demonstration in front of the school’s veterinary diagnostic laboratory, then marched to the California Regional Primate Research Center on campus, where the arrests occurred as most tried to cross a campus police picket line, a campus spokesman said. All were charged with trespassing and some were charged with resisting arrest and vandalism, campus officials said.

The group was protesting alleged animal cruelty to many of the 40,000 primates at the research center. Demonstrator Crescent Vellucci Jr., who was arrested, charged police with using batons to beat about a dozen of the protesters.

Activists had said earlier that they planned a “major action” at the veterinary laboratory. The building was destroyed in an arson fire in 1987. Protests also were staged Saturday during UC Davis’s annual “Picnic Day.”