Hundreds of New York Police Department officers wearing riot gear filed into a building late Tuesday that was taken over by pro-Palestinian protesters on the Columbia University campus earlier in the day and began making arrests.
The scene unfolded shortly after 9 pm as police, wearing helmets and carrying zip ties and shields, massed at the Ivy League university’s entrance in Manhattan.
Officers entered Hamilton Hall, an administration building on campus, on the second floor to clear out the structure.
Dozens of Emergency Service Unit officers entered the campus at 9:13 pm, but were blocked from entering the barricaded building through the front door, the New York Post reported.
The NYPD then sent its Mobile Adjustable Ramp System to the second floor, where the officers broke a window to enter, the Post reported.
The protesters were taken away on three NYPD buses.
Before officers entered the campus, the NYPD received a notice from Columbia authorizing officers to take action, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Walk away from this situation now and continue your advocacy through other means,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams advised the protesters on Tuesday afternoon. “This must end now.”
The NYPD’s move came hours after the department’s brass said officers wouldn’t enter Columbia’s campus without the college administration’s request or an imminent emergency.
The university earlier told dozens of demonstrators who took over a campus building early Tuesday morning that it would expel them if they didn’t leave the building.
The building takeover took place overnight, several hours after the school started suspending student protesters who defied an order to voluntarily vacate an encampment on the school’s West Lawn by 2 pm Monday.
Videos taken by students on the scene showed a group of student protesters hauling items early Tuesday, including metal tables to barricade the door of Hamilton Hall, one of the university’s main academic buildings for undergraduates and where the dean’s office is located.
The student group in the building — Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) — said protesters had renamed the building Hind’s Hall, after Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old girl who was killed in Gaza City in January. They unfurled a banner from the building that said “intifada”, meaning “an uprising” in Arabic, which Jewish leaders say is an incitement to violence against Israelis and Jews.
“An autonomous group of students has taken matters into their own hands. They will remain in Hamilton [Hall] until the University divests from death,” the group CUID said in an Instagram post.
In an emailed statement, CUID warned university administrators against calling in the New York Police Department.
“Do not incite another Kent or Jackson State by bringing soldiers and police officers with weapons to our campus,” the group said, in reference to deadly shootings amid campus unrest at the universities in Ohio and Mississippi, respectively, in 1970. “Students’ blood will be on your hands.”
The White House on Tuesday denounced the takeover of the building as “absolutely the wrong approach” and “not an example of peaceful protest”.
John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesman, told reporters: “A small percentage of students shouldn’t be able to disrupt the academic experience and the legitimate study for the rest of the student body. Students paying to go to school and wanting an education ought to be able to do that without disruption.”
Kirby said there is no active effort to involve the National Guard at this time. “That decision-making has to start with the governor,” he said.
Protesters earlier said that unless Columbia met their demands, including for the university to divest investments in companies doing business with Israel, they had no intention of disbanding.
The university said Monday it wouldn’t divest. A separate message from the school said the university would restrict campus access to students who are residents there, and essential employees. The only media allowed on the campus were CNN, The Associated Press, NY1, The New York Times and ABC News.
“If they need to go to the bathroom, they don’t even leave for that, because people don’t want to leave the tent knowing it might be removed,” Neel Murty, a 21-year-old engineering student, told China Daily outside the closed campus about protesters still in the tent encampment.
“There are still same tents on the lawn,” a student living in a campus dormitory told China Daily off-campus. “We are voluntarily transporting watering inside.”
The Columbia Daily Spectator, the school newspaper, reported that the group who made it inside the building and barricaded themselves covered security cameras inside with tape and black trash bags.
When the group barged into the building, several campus facilities workers were still inside, the newspaper said. The protesters removed some of the barricades to let them out. One of the workers yelled, “They held me hostage,” as he left the building, according to the newspaper.
The building is along the South Lawn, which has been the scene of the school’s anti-Israel encampment for more than a week. Hundreds gathered outside the building, and some linked arms to form a human chain blocking the entrance.
Four protesters wearing masks over their heads lowered a banner reading “Hind’s Hall” from a window overlooking the crowd, who cheered its unfurling, according to a clip posted to X.
Students, faculty and staff were told to “immediately vacate” Pulitzer Hall, the building housing the university’s journalism school, citing “safety concerns related to the situation on campus”, a message sent to students from the university early Monday morning read.
The email noted that all classes will be remote and that “it will not be possible to enter the building. Everyone must leave.”
Hamilton Hall was one of five buildings that students took over in 1968 during anti-Vietnam War and civil rights protests on the campus.
In 1985, students calling for Columbia’s divestment in apartheid South Africa renamed the building “Mandela Hall”. In 1992, protesters took over the hall rallying against the school’s plans to turn the Audubon Ballroom, where Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, into a biomedical research center.
Over the past week, hundreds of protesters have been arrested at more than 20 campuses across at least 16 states. Protests on many campuses have been orchestrated by coalitions of student groups. Some universities say outsiders have joined student protesters and caused trouble.
The protests have spread to Canada and Europe, with French police removing dozens of students from Sorbonne university after pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the main courtyard.
Dozens of protesters were arrested Monday at the University of Texas in Austin, a student group said.
Cornell University announced Monday that it is suspending students after those in an encampment on campus declined to move to an alternate location.
The University of Florida said protesters who broke the rules face being banned from campus for three years, suspended from the school and warned them they wouldn’t be treated “like children”.
At least nine were arrested at the University of Florida campus in Gainesville on Monday night, while three were arrested at the University of South Florida campus in Tampa, according to NBC affiliate WPTV of West Palm Beach.
Agencies contributed to this story.