March 25, 2026
The following is a statement issued by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression regarding the case of Rick Toledo, at Cal Poly Tech Humboldt. (stopfbi.org/)
On the night of March 19, 2026, University Police Department returned with a warrant to the apartment of Rick Toledo, Students for a Democratic Society organizer at Cal Poly Tech Humboldt, and seized his laptop, phone and other electronics such as a camera. They attempted to force him to give up his passcodes, and he told them no. He did the right thing.
Graphic: Committee to Stop FBI Repression
This violation of his privacy comes as part of their effort to charge him with four bogus felonies — false imprisonment, conspiracy, battery and assault –– related to the student protest on Feb. 27. This is the latest in their string of acts to suppress any campus free speech for Palestine and divestment from Israel, along with suspending and firing him from his university teaching job.
We should be perfectly clear about it: There is nothing wrong with supporting any student action, including building occupations, that is taken to make demands of a university. Our rights to free speech and freedom of assembly are protected by the First Amendment, enshrined in the Constitution. College protest is a longtime tradition, and it continues on today. Toledo committed no crime in supporting the student protest, and the university is determined to create lie after lie in order to demonize him.
In our view, what they really want to do is punish Toledo not for the one-day building occupation last month, but for the nine-day building occupation during the encampment movement in spring of 2024. That display of courage by the students in the name of ending university support for a genocide made it to millions of TV screens, and the state of California and university want someone to pay. Toledo is their target of choice, years later.
We demand that he not be charged with any crime because he didn’t do anything wrong. We demand that his devices be returned ASAP. Activists should learn from his example of not telling the police a single thing, including a passcode.
The university and police are the criminals here for trying to scare activists out of speaking out against the university’s continued financial support to Israeli apartheid. Now is not the time to suffer in silence; it’s the time to speak out. We need to condemn political repression, stand with Rick Toledo and defend our rights to speak out for Palestine.
Don’t charge Rick Toledo!
Give him his property back!
Protesting for Palestine is not a crime!
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