Video shows a man grabbing and throwing a female UC Berkeley student to the pavement as private security guards hired by concerned parents thwart attack

Parents of University of California, Berkeley students who hired private security to protect their children saw their investment pay off when one of the guards thwarted an attack on campus. 

DailyMail.com has obtained video showing a man grabbing a young woman, shaking her, then tossing her to the pavement. Luckily, one of the private guards hired by  parent safety group SafeBears - troubled by the rampant crime in the college town - arrived just in time to stop the man from kicking the her and succeeded in chased him off. 

The attack happened shortly after midnight Saturday March 23 just south of campus on the final night of a 17-day pilot program. SafeBears paid $42,000 to hire the private security vendor Streetplus, which assigned six 'safety ambassadors' to patrol around campus between 6.30pm and 3am.

The guard, who asked not to be named, told DailyMail.com, 'She's extremely lucky. Our presence there saved this girl from getting her face broken.'

SafeBears, a coalition of parents, raised funds for a two-week pilot program to hire unarmed guards to watch over Cal-Berkeley students from 6.30pm to 3am

DailyMail.com obtained video showing a man grabbing a woman, shaking her, then tossing her to the ground on the University of California, Berkeley campus

One of the SafeBears guards saved the woman from her attacker and chased him off, telling DailyMail.com, 'She's extremely lucky' 

A short video clip shows the man grabbing the woman and appears to kick her, as a voice could be heard shouting, 'Hey, hey, hey, hey!'

The guard told DailyMail.com that he was the one yelling, and that he shot the video on his cell phone while radioing to his team to call 911.

'She was struggling to get up,' he recalled. 'The guy was in a rage. He pulled his leg back and he was about to kick her. I ran up and started yelling, real loud.'

The guard said he tucked his phone away as he approached. The perpetrator, seeing him, backed off and ran over to a blue Mercedes. 

The guard tried to block the man's escape by slamming an open door shut, but the perpetrator climbed in through another passenger's seat. The security guard said he reached for his phone, trying but failing to get a picture of the license plate as the car drove off.

SafeBears, a nonprofit comprised mostly of concerned parents, raised funds for the two-and-a-half-week pilot program that saw security guards in fluorescent jackets milling about campus.

The unarmed officials surveilled several blocks around the university from March 6 through March 23, operating separately from UC Berkeley's campus police department.

The program came on the heels of a spike in crime in the city that saw a massive push to reduce police presence during the Black Lives Matter movement.

Speaking to NBC Bay Area, Sagar Jethani, the president of SafeBears and father of two students, said the program had received 'positive feedback.' He and other members of the organization hope to see more private security hired in the future.

'It went really well, we brought in a total of six safety ambassadors, some were deployed on foot, some on bicycles,' Jethani explained.

'They provided escorts to students who need them, security escorts, they provided directions, they were also just a very visible deterrent to crime.'

UC Berkeley saw a spike in crime between 2021 and 2022. Most notably, the number of aggravated assaults jumped from 54 to 63.

Parents asserted that university police were understaffed and overwhelmed by the rising violence.

Sagar Jethani, the president of SafeBears and father of two students, said the program had received 'positive feedback 

SafeBears  raised funds for the two-and-a-half-week pilot program that saw security guards in fluorescent jackets milling about campus

The unarmed officials surveilled several blocks around the university from March 6 through March 23, operating separately from UC Berkeley's campus police department

Parents' worries came to a head in 2022, when, following an altercation one block away from campus, a student was shot and killed.

Police said the shooting stemmed from an earlier fight. Three men aged 22, 24 and 28 were injured, while 29-year-old Isamaeli Mataafa died.

PhD student Isamaeli Mataafa, 29, was shot and killed one block away from campus in 2022

Mataafa was a PhD student at the Pacific School of Religion at the time of his death.

According to Jethani, the SafeBears program was modeled after private security UC Berkeley hired after the shooting. Streetplus was chosen for the job due to their existing relationship with the city.

Last month, another shooting erupted on campus when Virgil Hampton, 59, allegedly discharged his gun following a 'a physical altercation' with a student, the University of California Police Department said.

The man ordered students to open their backpacks and give him a charger. When a fight broke out, he retrieved a handgun and began firing into the air. While the blast only shattered a window, it left the community shaken.

The increased security presence also follows a years-long push to defund the police.

UC Berkeley has stood as stronghold of liberal thought in the Bay Area for decades, with the Princeton Review characterizing the student body as generally 'politically liberal, nonreligious, and pretty independent.'

Calls to cut funding from university police stemmed from two separate incidents in 2019, beginning when campus police responded to a report of two people on campus, with one carrying a stun gun.

According to an advisory from the school's Black Student Union, two freshmen were walking with a University of San Francisco student in March when officers approached and asked if they had a weapon.

The USF student admitted to carrying one for self-defense before one of the UC Berkeley students was 'thrown to the ground, arrested and brought to UCPD for interrogation.'

The University of San Francisco student was also arrested. Both students were cited and released, but neither student was read their rights during their arrests, the union claimed.

In a subsequent June 2019 incident, campus police detained two black boys -children of UC Berkeley students - after they called police to report a stranger taking photos of them.

In a demand letter sent to institution, a coalition of student groups alleged that police also 'used excessive force on the boys' as they put them in the back of a police car.

UC Berkeley saw a spike in crime between 2021 and 2022. Most notably, the number of aggravated assaults jumped from 54 to 63 

The program came on the heels of a spike in crime in the city that saw a massive push to reduce police presence during the Black Lives Matter movement 

Janet Gilmore, a spokeswoman for the school, later admitted that there was 'no further need for police action' at the time, despite an 11-year-old boy being handcuffed.

'By continuing to partner with Berkeley PD and fund UCPD, UC Berkeley plays an active role in this abusive system,' the letter read.

The charge to defund the police occurred against a backdrop of similar calls in the city at large.

In 2020, amid outcries over George Floyd's murder, the Berkeley City Council voted to slash the police budget by $9.2 million, which represented 12 percent of the department's annual operating budget. Thirty positions in the police department were frozen.

At the time, city departments were required to take cost-saving measures due to pandemic deficits.

Mayor Jesse Arreguín said the department would have claimed 50 percent of the city's discretionary fund over the next five years if such action had not been taken.

In May 2022, the City Council opted to 'refund the police' after arriving at a compromise that saw $5.3 million awarded to public safety programs.

Several council members also pushed for the restoration of the 30 frozen positions.

Arreguín, who had previously been a major advocate for cutting funding, deemed the vote an 'important milestone.'

The decision also came amid skyrocketing crime rates. During a March 2023 meeting, Interim Police Chief Jen Louis shared that the overall total number of violent and property crimes in 2022 was 'the highest in the past 10 years.'

'Berkeley continues to have one of the highest property crime rates in our region,' she said at the time.

Assault and battery had risen 1 percent year to date, with 148 reports so far. Reports of stolen vehicles saw the biggest leap, rising 12 percent with 293 reports. Meanwhile, thefts, sexual assault and burglary were all down.

City leaders have asserted most of the department's time is consumed by low-level calls, leading to less focus on violent crime. One suggestion has been moving traffic enforcement away from cops, which may also reduce racial disparities in policing.