Hundreds of officers sent in to end occupation of N.Y. university building
NEW YORK — Police cleared 30 to 40 people from inside Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall late on Tuesday after pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the administration building in New York earlier in the day.
Hundreds of NYPD officers acted after the school’s president said there was no other way to ensure safety and restore order on campus and sought help from the department. The occupied building had expanded the demonstrators’ reach from an encampment elsewhere on the Ivy League school’s grounds.
The scene unfolded shortly after 9 p.m. as police, wearing helmets and carrying zip ties and riot shields, massed at the college’s entrance.
Scores of officers climbed through a window to enter the occupied building, streaming in over a ramp raised from the top of a police vehicle to get inside. Protesters were taken into custody and taken away from campus on buses.
The confrontation occurred more than 12 hours after the demonstrators took over Hamilton Hall shortly after midnight on Tuesday, spreading their reach from an encampment elsewhere on the grounds that has been there for nearly two weeks to protest the Israel-Hamas war. The police action happened on the 56th anniversary of a similar police action to quash an occupation of Hamilton Hall by students protesting against racism and the Vietnam War.
In a statement issued after the police entered the campus, the university described its decision to seek NYPD aid as a last resort. The police department had previously said officers wouldn’t enter the grounds without the college administration’s request or an imminent emergency. Now, law enforcement will be there through May 17, the end of the university’s commencement events.
“After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school said, adding that school public safety personnel were forced out of the building and one facilities worker was “threatened.”
“The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing,” the school said. “We have made it clear that the life of campus cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate the rules and the law.”
Columbia’s protests began last month and kicked off demonstrations in the U.S. that now span from California to Massachusetts. As May commencement ceremonies near, administrators face pressure to clear protesters.
More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested over the past two weeks on campuses in states including Texas, Utah, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Connecticut, Louisiana, California and New Jersey, some after confrontations with police in riot gear.
Tuesday’s police action at Columbia came exactly 56 years after officers swept into Hamilton Hall to arrest protesters occupying the building in 1968. The students taken into custody on that April 30 had taken over the hall and other campus buildings for a week to protest racism and the Vietnam War.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump called into Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News Channel to comment on Columbia’s turmoil as live footage of police clearing Hamilton Hall aired. Trump praised the officers.
“But it should never have gotten to this,” he told Hannity. “And they should have done it a lot sooner than before they took over the building because it would have been a lot easier if they were in tents rather than a building. And tremendous damage done, too.”
In a letter to senior NYPD officials, Columbia president Minouche Shafik said the administration was making the request that police remove protesters from the occupied building and a nearby tent encampment “with the utmost regret.”
Earlier, New York City Mayor Eric Adams advised the protesters to leave before police arrived. “Walk away from this situation now and continue your advocacy through other means,” he said. “This must end now.”