N.Y.C. officer fired gun inside university’s hall
District attorney’s office says no students were in immediate area and that a review is being conducted
A police officer who was involved in clearing protesters from a Columbia University administration building this week fired his gun inside the hall, a spokesperson for District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office confirmed Thursday.
No one was injured, according to spokesperson Doug Cohen, who said there were other officers but no students in the immediate vicinity. He said Bragg’s office is conducting a review.
He did not provide additional details on the incident, which was first reported by news outlet The City. The New York Police Department did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment.
The gunfire came as police stormed Hamilton Hall late Tuesday. ProPalestinian protesters had been barricaded inside for more than 20 hours. Video showed officers with zip ties and riot shields streaming through a second-floor window. Police had said protesters inside presented no substantial resistance.
More than 100 protesters were arrested during the crackdown. They are part of more than 2,000 people who have been arrested during proPalestinian protests at college campuses across the United States in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press tally Thursday.
Columbia’s demonstrators had seized Hamilton Hall early Tuesday, ramping up their presence on the campus from a tent encampment that had been there since April 17. The encampment was one of the earliest on college campuses.
Despite more than 100 arrests the next day and the clearing of the tents, the protesters defied threats of suspension to return to the encampment. Then they escalated their demonstration by occupying Hamilton Hall, an administration building that was similarly seized in 1968 by students protesting racism and the Vietnam War.
Beyond Columbia’s New York campus, demonstrations and arrests have occurred in almost every corner of the country. In the last 24 hours, they’ve drawn the most attention at the University of California, Los Angeles, where chaotic scenes played out early Thursday when officers in riot gear surged against a crowd of demonstrators.
Hundreds of protesters at UCLA defied orders to leave, some forming human chains as police fired flash-bangs to break up the crowds.
At least 200 people were arrested, said Sgt. Alejandro Rubio of the California Highway Patrol, citing data from the Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Department.
Another 300 people voluntarily left throughout the hours-long standoff, some filing out of the encampment with their hands over their heads in a show of peaceful surrender, according to the university. Others ran away as batonwielding officers pushed into the hordes that numbered more than 1,000 people.
Later Thursday morning, workers removed barricades and dismantled the protesters’ fortified encampment. Bulldozers scooped up bags of trash and tents. Royce Hall was covered in graffiti.
Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in statement Thursday the encampment had become “a focal point for serious violence as well as a huge disruption.”
U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday defended the students’ right to peaceful protest but decried the disorder of recent days.
California Republican leaders blasted university administrations for failing to protect Jewish students and allowing protests to escalate into “lawlessness and violence.” They called for the firing of leaders at UCLA and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, and pushed for a proposal that would cut pay for university administrators.
Elsewhere, University of Minnesota officials reached an agreement with protesters not to disrupt commencements. Similar agreements have been made at Northwestern University in suburban Chicago, Rutgers University in New Jersey and Brown University in Rhode Island.