UCI Police Close Camp, Arrest Hunger Strikers : Protest: Five on liquids-only fast are cited, released. They plan to take affirmative action concerns to regents.

IRVINE — Campus police clad in riot gear arrested five hunger strikers and two other UC Irvine students Sunday for disobeying a police order to dismantle a tent encampment in front of the university’s administration building.

The hunger strikers, who were in the 13th day of a liquids-only fast to pressure the University of California into restoring affirmative action programs, since midnight Friday had been in violation of an agreement to abandon the encampment.

University policy prohibits overnight camping, but the students had been granted permission to maintain their makeshift encampment outside the administration building for 10 days.

The hunger strikers--four UCI students and one from Claremont Colleges--and the two other UCI students were cited on misdemeanor charges of failing to obey a police order and released from Orange County Jail on Sunday. The five Latino males who are fasting were “medically stable” at the time of their release, according to university officials.

The strikers said they will not seek to re-establish their encampment at UCI, but will travel to Sacramento on Tuesday to urge the UC Board of Regents to rescind its July vote to abolish affirmative action in the 162,000-student university system.

The strikers pledged to continue their fast, and spent Sunday night in private residences in Irvine preparing for the trip to the state capital.

“I’m psychologically drained at this point,” said Angel Cervantes, 23, a graduate student in history at Claremont Colleges. “We need to gather our strength to confront the regents now.”

The regents have not publicly reacted to the strikers. Efforts to reach UC Regent Meredith J. Khachigian, whose San Clemente home was the site of protests by the hunger strikers last week, were unsuccessful.

One of the strikers, 21-year-old UCI student Juan Cazarez, has entered the early stages of what could become serious liver and kidney damage because of the fast, according to hunger strikers and university officials.

Cazarez, who has lost 25 pounds from his former 350-pound frame, said Sunday that he has significantly slowed the pace of organ deterioration by drinking water at a faster rate now than at the beginning of the fast.

“I’m just taking it one day at a time,” Cazarez said. “The doctors said it’s not too serious or deadly right now.”

But UCI Vice Chancellor Manuel Gomez said that based on medical reports, Cazarez may require emergency hospitalization sometime this week for his condition. Gomez was given twice-daily medical reports about the strikers’ health, which was monitored by university medical staff.

All the strikers have complained of symptoms associated with self-starvation--headaches, stomach pains, declining blood pressure and heart rate, and extreme fatigue. The body’s organs begin to fail after 30 to 50 days without food, according to medical experts.

Around noon Sunday, after being blocked briefly by a human chain of about 150 supporters, campus police moved into the strikers’ tent encampment and arrested them without further incident. The police lifted them out of their wheelchairs, handcuffed them and walked them to waiting police cars, according to university and eyewitness reports.

“It was pretty intense at first when everyone saw the cops,” said Adrian Neri, a spokesman for the United Front, the multiethnic UCI student group that organized the hunger strike. “But eventually things calmed down and it went OK.”

During the arrests, supporters chanted “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” while Native American dancers pounded on drums.

Added Martha Gomez, who has been with her hunger-striking son, Cesar Cruz, since the fast began nearly two weeks ago: “I know he is right. I feel proud because they are so brave to do this.”

University officials were pleased with the peaceful arrest.

“Everything went smoothly,” Gomez said. “But we remain extremely disappointed in the students for not honoring their agreement” to limit their 24-hour-a-day encampment outside the administration building.

While citing no serious problems with the campus police who arrested them, the hunger strikers said sheriff’s deputies at the Orange County Jail dragged a handcuffed Cazarez five feet across the floor for failing to immediately comply with a deputy’s request.

“They just picked me up and threw me,” Cazarez said. “My shoulder still hurts.”

Cervantes said another deputy accused him of being “racist, since affirmative action is reverse discrimination.”

But Lt. Dan Jarvis, who works at the Orange County Jail, flatly denied the accusations.

“There’s minimal handling in cite-and-release cases like these,” he said. “And I don’t think we espouse our political views to that extent. We have a diverse group of people who work here.”

The students began their hunger strike Oct. 17, declaring that the regents’ decision on affirmative action was the final straw in a series of what they regard as racist attacks on minorities, especially Latinos.

The strikers have regularly denounced Proposition 187 and the Republican Party’s “contract with America” during their nearly two-week-long strike.

The five hunger strikers are: Angel Cervantes, 23, a graduate history student at Claremont Colleges; Cesar Cruz, 21, a Spanish, women’s studies and history major at UCI; Manuel Galvan, 21, a biology major at UCI; Enrique Valencia, 21, a business and Spanish major at UCI, and Juan Cazarez, 21, a Spanish major at UCI.

The two other UCI students arrested were Rogelio Galvan, an 18-year-old brother of hunger striker Manuel Galvan from San Diego, and Ramiro Palomo, 25, of El Monte.

Times staff writer Greg Miller contributed to this report.