NYPD Clears Columbia University Building, Arrests Over 100 Protesters; Cops To Remain On Campus

New York police entered Columbia University’s campus late Tuesday and cleared the Hamilton Hall building which was occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters. Law enforcement officials told the broadcaster that over 100 protesters were arrested Tuesday at Columbia University and City College of New York and most arrests were made at Columbia.

Dozens of people were around Hamilton Hall, on the Columbia campus in the middle of New York City, as police arrived and began pushing protesters outside.

After finishing the two-hours long operation, the NYPD said Columbia University’s property has been cleared, according to US broadcaster CNN. The NYPD said that Hamilton Hall has also been cleared and nobody was wounded during the operation. It further added that it is monitoring different locations for protesters across the city.

Columbia University released a statement and said that the majority of those who broke into and occupied the Hamilton Hall building are not associated with the university. “We regret that protesters have chosen to escalate the situation through their actions. After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalised, and blockaded, we were left with no choice. Columbia public safety personnel were forced out of the building, and a member of our facilities team was threatened. We will not risk the safety of our community or the potential for further escalation,” the university said in a statement.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) arrested dozens of protesters on Tuesday night (local time) after entering the second floor of Hamilton Hall via an elevated ramp. Police officers said that they acted after receiving a letter from the university administration who authorised them to enter the campus, according to CNN. A separate report by US broadcaster CNN citing Columbia authorities said that the university administration asked the NYPD to maintain a presence on campus through at least May 17 in order to “maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished”.

Those arrested were zip-tied and loaded onto buses.

University administrators across the US are struggling to contain pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses across the nation. The sweeping protests first began in Columbia University and then spread across other universities, marking the most prolonged unrest to rock US college campuses since the Vietnam war protests of the 1960s and 70s.

Several hundred students as well as faculty members and activists and even a presidential candidate have been arrested or detained.

The protesters remain defiant and have vowed to maintain their actions despite suspensions and threats of expulsion.

“We will remain here, drawing from the lessons of our people (in Gaza) that stay put, and hold their ground even under the worst conditions,” a protester wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh head scarf, who declined to give her name, told reporters outside the hall earlier in the day.

In the videos, which News18 could not independently verify, at least 50 officers were seen entering the building using an elevated ramp to enter the building through a window. Police wore helmets and carried heavy-duty bolt cutters and flexi-cuffs, a zip-tie-like restraint cuff.

President Joe Biden’s White House had sharply criticized the seizure of Hamilton Hall, with a spokesman saying it was “absolutely the wrong approach.”

“That is not an example of peaceful protest,” the spokesman added.

The protests have posed a challenge to university administrators trying to balance free speech rights with complaints that the rallies have veered into anti-Semitism and hate.

The unrest has swept through US higher education institutions like wildfire, with many student protesters erecting tent encampments on campuses from coast to coast.