2 UA Students Charged After Border Patrol Protest: Video

The University of Arizona Police Department has officially charged two students who protested a U.S. Border Patrol presentation to the school's Criminal Justice Association club. Denisse Melchor, 20, and Mariel Bustamante, 22, are facing misdemeanor charges, according to the Arizona Republic.

Melchor was charged with interference with the peaceful conduct of an educational institution and threats and intimidation, both misdemeanors, and Bustamante was charged with interference with the peaceful conduct of an educational institution, the Republic says. Both were cited.

A video of the incident, taken by Melchor, shows her interrupting the Border Patrol agents during their presentation. She says campus is supposed to be a safe space for students, "but they allow an extension of the KKK into campus."

As the Border Patrol agents leave, Melchor and others follow, chanting "murder patrol" from the classroom to the agents' car.

The Daily Wildcat, the school's newspaper, quoted Luisa Pinto, the Criminal Justice Association's president, as saying "[h]er right to free speech only goes so far. She has every right to scream and yell all she wants outside the building, but the moment she's inside a building and interfering with our education...our rights were violated."

See the Daily Wildcat report here.

"The incident between the protesting students and the Criminal Justice club members was a dramatic departure from our expectations of respectful behavior and support for free speech on this campus," said university president Robert C. Robbins in a second statement.

See the video here: