Aerial footage from broadcaster KABC, an affiliate of ABC, showed people wielding sticks or poles to attack wooden boards being held up as a makeshift barricade to protect pro-Palestinian protesters, some holding placards or umbrellas.
New York Police were seen loading dozens of Columbia University protesters onto a bus, each with their hands bound behind their backs by zip-ties. Source: AAP / Syndi Pilar
Earlier on Wednesday, New York City police raided Columbia University to arrest dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, some of whom had seized an academic building, and to remove a protest encampment the Ivy League school had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.
At the start of the raid throngs of helmeted police marched onto the elite campus in upper Manhattan, a focal point of student rallies that have spread to dozens of schools across the US in recent days expressing opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.
NYPD officers arrest a student at Columbia University in New York City on April 30, 2024. Source: Getty / Timothy A. Clary
‘Shame, shame’
“Columbia will be proud of these students in five years,” said Sweda Polat, one of the student negotiators for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the coalition of student groups that has organised the protests.
At an evening news briefing held a few hours before police entered Columbia, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall takeover was instigated by “outside agitators” who lack any affiliation with Columbia and are known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness. Source: Getty / Kena Betancur
What did the protesters demand?
Protesters were seeking three demands from Columbia:
- Divestment from companies supporting Israel’s government
- Greater transparency in university finances
- Amnesty for students and faculty disciplined over the protests
Instead, she offered to invest in health and education in Gaza and make Columbia’s direct investment holdings more transparent.
The eight-story, neo-classical building has been the site of various student occupations dating back to the 1960s.