Police clear pro-Palestinian protesters from Columbia University while clashes break out at UCLA
File photo
Security was tightened Tuesday at the campus after officials said there were “physical altercations” between factions of protesters.
Duelling groups of protesters clashed on Wednesday at the University of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another. Hours earlier, police carrying riot shields burst into a building at Columbia University that pro-Palestinian protesters took over and broke up a demonstration that had paralysed the school while inspiring others.
After a couple hours of one-and-off scuffles between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators at UCLA, police wearing helmets and face shields arrived, formed lines and began to slowly corral some of the protesters. That appeared to quell the violence.
Police have swept through campuses across the US over the last two weeks in response to protests calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the war in Gaza.
There have been confrontations and more than 1,000 arrests. In rarer instances, university officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies.
The clashes at UCLA took place around a tent encampment built by pro-Palestinian protesters, who erected barricades and plywood for protection — while counter-protesters tried to pull them down. People threw chairs and at one point a group piled on a person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating them with sticks until others pulled them out of the scrum. It was not clear how many people might be injured.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the violence “absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable" in a spot on social media platform X and said officers from the Los Angeles Police Department were on the scene. Officers from the California Highway Patrol also appeared to be there. The university said it had requested help.
Security was tightened Tuesday at the campus after officials said there were “physical altercations” between factions of protesters. Late that same day, New York City officers entered Columbia's campus after the university requested help, according to a statement released by a spokesperson. A tent encampment on the school's grounds was cleared, along with Hamilton Hall where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a second-floor window. Protesters seized the hall at the Ivy League school about 20 hours earlier.
“After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school said. “The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing. We have made it clear that the life of campus cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate the rules and the law.” Police spokesman Carlos Nieves said he had no immediate reports of any injuries. The arrests occurred after protesters shrugged off an earlier ultimatum to abandon the encampment Monday or be suspended and unfolded as other universities stepped up efforts to end demonstrations that were inspired by Columbia.
Fabien Lugo, a first-year accounting student who said he was not involved in the protests, said he opposed the university's decision to call in police. “This is too intense,” he said. “It feels like more of an escalation than a de-escalation.” Just blocks away from Columbia, at The City College of New York, demonstrators were in a standoff with police outside the public college's main gate.
Video posted on social media by news reporters on the scene late Tuesday showed officers putting some people to the ground and shoving others as they cleared people from the street and sidewalks.
After police arrived, officers lowered a Palestinian flag atop the City College flagpole, balled it up and tossed it to the ground before raising an American flag.
Brown University, another member of the Ivy League, reached an agreement Tuesday with protesters on its Rhode Island campus. Demonstrators said they would close their encampment in exchange for administrators taking a vote to consider divestment from Israel in October. The compromise appeared to mark the first time a US college has agreed to vote on divestment in the wake of the protests.
Meanwhile, at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, police in riot gear closed in on an encampment late Tuesday and arrested about 20 people for trespassing, at least one of whom was thrown to the ground.
University officials had warned earlier in the day that students would face criminal charges if they did not disperse.
Negotiations between the protesters and the college came to a standstill in recent days, and the school set a deadline for the activists to abandon the tent encampment Monday afternoon or be suspended.
Instead, protesters defied the ultimatum and took over Hamilton Hall early Tuesday, carrying in furniture and metal barricades.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from AP/PTI)