Hundreds of New York City police officers entered Columbia University on Tuesday evening to clear an academic building taken over by pro-Palestinian students the day before, as tensions surrounding the students’ campus encampment for Gaza have roiled the New York school for two weeks.
Live video images showed police in riot gear marching on to the upper Manhattan campus, the focal point of nationwide student protests opposing Israel’s war in Gaza.
“We’re clearing it out,” police yelled as they marched up to the barricaded entrance to the building.
“Shame! Shame!” jeered many onlooking students still outside on campus.
Dozens of police marched to the protest encampment. Before long, officers were seen leading handcuffed protesters to police vehicles outside campus gates.
Police loaded about 50 detainees onto a bus, each with their hands bound behind their backs by zip ties, the entire scene illuminated with the flashing red and blue lights of police vehicles. Ambulances and other emergency-services vehicles stood at the ready. According to New York police, flash-bangs were used to disperse the crowd, but not teargas.
Jelani Cobb, the dean of the journalism school, was threatened with arrest if he and others in the building came out, according to an announcement from Columbia’s student radio station.
“Free, free, free Palestine,” chanted protesters outside the building. Others yelled: “Let the students go.”
Shortly after midnight, Associated Press reported that police had cleared out Hamilton Hall.
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the university ignored the Monday ultimatum by school leadership to abandon their encampment or risk suspension. The university said it started suspensions early on Monday evening.
“We have begun suspending students as part of this next phase of our efforts to ensure safety on our campus,” the university said in an update on its website. “Once disciplinary action is initiated, adjudication is handled by several different units within the university based on the nature of the offense.”
Columbia University officials had threatened academic expulsion of the students who had seized Hamilton Hall, an eight-story neo-classical building blocked by protesters who linked arms to form a barricade and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.
“We made it very clear [on Monday] that the work of the university cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate the rules,” a Columbia spokesperson, Ben Chang, said. “Continuing to do so will be met with clear consequences. Protesters have chosen to escalate to an untenable situation – vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows, and blockading entrances – we are following through with the consequences we outlined yesterday.”
The ultimatum came after the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, announced that efforts to reach a compromise with protest organisers had failed. She said that the institution would not bow to demands to divest from Israel.
At a Tuesday evening news briefing, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall takeover was instigated by “outside agitators” who lack any affiliation with Columbia and are known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness.
Hamilton Hall was one of several buildings occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protest on the campus. Student protesters there have overtaken it once again, displaying a large banner that reads “Hind’s Hall”, renaming it in honor of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza City who was killed by Israeli forces earlier this year.
Adams suggested some of the student protesters were not fully aware of “external actors” in their midst.
“We cannot and will not allow what should be a peaceful gathering to turn into a violent spectacle that serves no purpose. We cannot wait until this situation becomes even more serious. This must end now,” the mayor said.
One of the student leaders of the protest, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian scholar attending Columbia’s school of international and public affairs on a student visa, disputed assertions that outsiders had initiated the occupation.
“They’re students,” he told Reuters.
Tensions rose after nightfall, a couple of hours later, as growing numbers of police, some in riot gear, became visible on city streets near campus and university administrators issued a “shelter in place” email notice to students.
New York police department officials had stressed before Tuesday night’s sweep that officers would refrain from entering the campus unless Columbia administrators invited their presence, as they did on 18 April, when NYPD officers removed an earlier encampment.
Reuters contributed to this report