Jug Of Justice Bonk The Police — Protester swinging a water jug at riot police with Palestine solidarity emblem overlay

Jug Of Justice Bonk The Police

2024viral videodead

Published July 30, 2026

Jug of Justice and Bonk the Police are pro-Palestine protest symbols originating from a viral April 2024 video of a Cal Poly Humboldt student hitting a police officer with a large water jug during campus demonstrations. The water jug became an exploitable image and ACAB symbol during the wave of university encampments protesting the Israel-Hamas conflict.

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Overview

Jug of Justice and Bonk the Police are catchphrases and visual symbols that emerged from the April 2024 pro-Palestine university protests in the United States. The terms refer to a moment captured on livestream where a student protester at California Polytechnic State University, Humboldt used a large empty water jug to repeatedly strike a police officer's helmet while demonstrators blocked cops from entering an occupied building1.

The water jug quickly became an exploitable image, edited into various anti-police and pro-Palestine graphics. The word "bonk" connected the incident to existing internet humor around the Bonk Cheems meme, giving the protest imagery a playful edge that helped it spread4. Artists created illustrations of the jug, designed merchandise-style graphics, and produced remixes adding cartoon sound effects to the original footage5.

Origin & Background

Platform
Facebook (livestream) / Twitter (viral spread)
Date
2024

On April 22, 2024, pro-Palestine student protesters occupied Siemens Hall at Cal Poly Humboldt, demanding the university divest from companies tied to Israel1. Local journalism outlet Redheaded Blackbelt livestreamed the events on Facebook. During the roughly 90-minute broadcast, police in riot gear attempted to push through a doorway blocked by demonstrators2.

One student had been using an empty five-gallon water jug as a drum. When police pressed forward around the 48-minute mark, the student began swinging the jug at an officer's head. The moment was captured in the livestream and later isolated and reposted across social media12.

How It Spread

The viral spread began almost immediately. On April 22, 2024, X user @poetryc0mmunity posted the clip with the caption "lmao Cal Poly Humboldt students don't PLAY!" The post gained over 6 million views and 23,000 likes within a week4. The next day, @Newyorkist reposted the video, accumulating 8.4 million views4.

Meme creators responded quickly. On April 23, artist @krime_1 posted an illustration of a police officer being struck by a water jug, earning over 15,000 likes4. That same day, @SomeSeananigans shared an image reading "Bonk Bonk Bonk ACAB" that received 17,000 likes, and @GoodVibePolitik posted a version with cartoon bonk sound effects added5.

By April 27, TikToker @oluwahotchip6 posted a video explicitly naming the phrases "Jug of Justice" and "Bonk the Police," noting how the water jug had become a resistance symbol. The video received over 251,000 plays4. The jug also appeared at other campus protests. At Arizona State University on April 26, demonstrators used a similar jug to block sprinklers that had been turned on their encampment, with X users connecting the tactic to the Cal Poly video4. Artist No$hu released "The Bonk Song" on Bandcamp April 27, with a snippet video gaining 12,000 likes on X3.

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