Police drove an armored SWAT vehicle known as a BearCat to Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall.
Police arrested nearly 300 pro-Palestinian protesters after they moved in on college campuses in New York overnight using heavy machinery.
Police drove an armored SWAT vehicle known as a BearCat to Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall, which had been occupied by protesters since Monday night. A line of officers stormed up a ladder into a second-story window to get access to the building.
Video released by NYPD shows police officers running up a staircase and forcing open the door of a professor’s office. Outside, police went tent by tent to cleared the encampment on the college campus. People who were arrested were taken to police headquarters buses.
Nearly 30 blocks away at City College of New York, a pro-Palestinian protest was broken up. Police took down a Palestinian flag and replaced it with an American flag.
Some of those arrested were charged with burglary and vandalism. Some others were charged with trespassing.
Police began preparing to address the protests Tuesday when they launched a drone to scope out the campuses.
On Wednesday, NYPD Coordinator Edward Caban held up a chain that pro-Palestinian protesters used to barricade the door. “They tried to lock us out but the NYPD and the people of the city of New York will never be locked out and we will work together to keep our city safe,” Caban said.
New York Mayor Eric Adams blamed outside activists for escalating the protests.
“Outside agitators were on the ground training and really co-opting this movement,” Adams said.
Professor emeritus of sociology and African American studies at Northwestern University Aldon Morris told CNN authorities have a history of accusing “outside agitators” of undermining protests in large-scale social movements.
“The notion here is that student protests aren’t really legitimate because the claim is they are being taken over by outside agitators who are violent, anti-government, anti-democracy and so forth,” Morris told CNN. “It seems to me that the ‘outside agitator’ claim is one to shift the focus away from the grievances of the students and their protest.”
Columbia professors continued to protest on Wednesday. Some say they are outraged by the decision to call in the NYPD to break up the protests.
