Police Off Campus! Was produced and directed by the students of the UCLA Motion Picture and Television Division following a large protest at UCLA on May 5, 1970, in which students were mobilized murder of white students at Kent State by police the day earlier (May 4, 1970), as well as the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, the ongoing war in Vietnam, and the political repression of Black Panthers including the firing of Angela Davis from UCLA and the incarceration of Bobby Seale in connection with the Chicago 8 and the New Haven Black Panther trials. Police came onto UCLA’s campus and began beating and shooting at students. The police’s violence mobilized students to strike and hold a moratorium, halting coursework and business as usual for the University. Television students shot footage on ½” open reel video tape, or the Portapack Camera, the first commercially available portable video camcorder.
