The LAPD released images of four suspects behind an attack on Turkish Consulate members in hopes that the public may be able to help identify them.
The attack occurred at an Armenian-led protest that took place on campus in September following an event hosted by USC at Annenberg Hall. The alleged attackers were shown in a video posted to X throwing water and shoving three Turkish Consulate members as they tried to leave campus before punching and kicking one victim near Grace Ford Salvatori Hall. According to the LAPD, the suspects fled the scene and were not apprehended by police.
Protestors arrived the morning of September 29 in response to a conference at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism building featuring Turkish Ambassador Hasan Murat Mercan.
“I think it’s more than expected that the LAPD is held responsible for finding the people who did this,” Melis Olcay, a member of the Turkish Trojan Association, said. “Especially since the people who were actually responsible for the protest becoming violent and out of control weren’t actual USC students, they were adult people who heard about this event and took advantage of it.”
The Turkish Graduate Student Association at USC made a statement on Instagram following the alleged assault by protestors saying the “incident has deeply affected our sense of security and belonging” on campus.
On September 19, after a nine-month blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, a contested region within Azerbaijan with an ethnic Armenian majority, Azerbaijani forces launched a 24-hour military operation in the region. The attack led to the displacement of more than 90% of the region’s Armenian population. Turkey, which borders Armenia, has pledged full support for Azerbaijan and its offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh.
USC had already invited Mercan for its “Role of Public Diplomacy in Turkish Foreign Policy” conference before Azerbaijan launched its attack.
After the event, the Armenian Student Association at USC released a statement also condemning the violence against the three diplomats and distancing the efforts of students who “exercised exclusively peaceful tactics of civil disobedience” from the four accused attackers. ASA also made it clear that USC’s decision to go through with the event and deploy DPS officers, who the organization accused of excessive force, had “subjected [the] Armenian student population to unimaginable cruelty.”
“USC made the decision to give genocide denial a platform on campus,” the statement reads. “Hosting this event outweighed the emotional, mental and physical wellbeing of its students during this highly sensitive time.”
Armenian student and research organizations had publicly opposed the event prior to the protest and made efforts to either cancel Mercan’s appearance or at least postpone it while the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh was underway.