Police entered Columbia University to break up a protest after pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied one of the campus buildings.
This comes after New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday that the protest “must end now” and claimed the demonstration had been infiltrated by “outside professional agitators.”
The protest began when students barricaded the entrance to the Columbia University building in new York Tuesday and displayed a Palestinian flag through a window.
Video footage showed protesters on the Manhattan campus locking arms in front of Hamilton Hall and carrying furniture and metal barricades into the building.
A group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) said it renamed Hamilton Hall to “Hind’s Hall” in honor of Hindu Rajaba six-year-old girl killed in a strike on Gaza in February.
Protesters unfurled a flag with the words “Hind’s Hall”. Photo: Reuters
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Protesters said they planned to stay in the hall until the university accedes to CUAD’s three demands: divestment, financial transparency and amnesty.
However, police officers moved onto campus Tuesday evening after university principals wrote to New York City officials and the New York Police Department (NYPD) formally requesting help.
A large group of officers dressed in riot gear entered the campus late in the evening. They were then seen entering through the window of a university building in a police pod-style vehicle.
Columbia University previously threatened to expel students involved in the protest.
A student protester waves a Palestinian flag above Hamilton Hall on the campus of Columbia University, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in New York. Early Tuesday, dozens of protesters invaded Hamilton Hall, locking arms and carrying furniture and metal bases
Dozens of people were arrested Monday during protests at universities in Texas, Utah, Virginia and New Jersey, while Columbia said hours before the Hamilton Hall takeover that it had begun to suspend students.
Police decided to clear an encampment at Yale University in Connecticut on Tuesday morning, but no arrests were immediately reported.
Meanwhile, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said President Joe Biden believes such protests are “absolutely the wrong approach” and “do not constitute an example of peaceful protest.”
