The measure was taken about 20 hours after a group of students broke into the building Hamilton Hallthey will close the doors and barricade themselves inside using tables, chairs, metal barricades and other objects.
During the operation, agents barricade observers, doctors, journalists and students in buildings, while clearing the streets and campus.
Prison buses arrived at the scene for mass arrests.
A large police tactical vehicle arrived at the scene with an extendable ramp to enter the second floor of Hamilton Hall through a window, since according to university staff some protesters were still inside.
Some protesters were escorted off campus by police with their hands handcuffed behind their backs.. The New York Police Department issued an order for people to disperse from the entrance area to the facility.
Two of the buses were seen leaving a street near the campus visibly filled with students. According to a police spokesperson, about 100 people have been arrested that night.
University reaction
“We regret that the protesters have chosen to aggravate the situation through their actions“, was communicated from the educational center. “After the University learned during the night that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized and blocked, we had no other option,” they stated.
“We will not risk the safety of our community or the possibility of further escalation,” the university added, stating that its leadership team felt that “It was a police matter. and that the NYPD was in the best position to determine and execute an appropriate response.”
clear university
A group of approximately 100 officers went on to disperse the last protesters on campus. According to the Police, in the raid they used stun grenades to disorient the crowd, but they were not used tear gas.
Currently there are no protesters left either on the university facilities or in the camp set up on campus in rejection of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. “The only thing left are the tents and their belongings“said Carlos Nieves, deputy commissioner of public information for the Police Department.
For her part, the president of Columbia University, Nemat Shafik, asked the New York Police Department for officers to remain on campus until at least May 17.
What happens at Columbia University?
In mid-April, students at Columbia University set up a few dozen tents, a couple of Palestinian flags, and some handwritten signs reading slogans like: “Columbia finances genocide” and “As you read, Gaza bleeds“, among others. The result was the arrest of more than 100 protesters, but the protest continued.
This Monday, Columbia University announced that it had begun expel temporarily to the students who had continued participating in the pro-Palestinian protest. The next day, protesters they broke the windows and barricaded themselves inside an academic building on the Manhattan campus.
The initial protest has generated a wave of similar demonstrations on university campuses across the country. Harvard, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, Yale University, the University of California at Los Angeles and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, among others, were filled with young people dissatisfied with the actions of his Government in support of Tel Aviv.
