Police clear anti-Israel protesters from Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall

Members of the New York Police Department strategic response team load arrested protesters from Columbia University onto a bus, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in New York (AP Photo/Julius Motal)
Members of the New York Police Department strategic response team load arrested protesters from Columbia University onto a bus, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in New York (AP Photo/Julius Motal)

Police cleared 30 to 40 people from inside Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall overnight after protesters against Israel 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. Multiple 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 Tuesday, spreading their reach from an encampment elsewhere on the grounds that’s 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 racism and the Vietnam War.

“After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school says, adding that school public safety personnel were forced out of the building and one facilities worker was “threatened.”

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