2024-05-03 09:08:00
LOS ANGELES – Police have arrested nearly 2,200 people in recent weeks during pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the United States, sometimes using riot gear, tactical vehicles and stun guns to clear tent camps and occupied buildings. One officer fired his gun into a Columbia University administration building as protesters camped inside cleared, a prosecutor’s office confirmed.
No one was injured by the officer’s actions late Tuesday inside Hamilton Hall on the Columbia campus, according to Doug Cohen, a spokesman for District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
At the time, he tried to use the flashlight attached to his gun and instead fired a single round that hit a frame on the wall.
There were other officers but no students in the immediate area, officials said. Body camera footage shows when the officer’s gun went off, but the district attorney’s office is conducting a review, a standard practice.
Cohen said Thursday that the gun did not appear to be aimed at anyone, and that there were other officers but no students in the immediate area. Bragg’s office is conducting a review, a standard practice.
More than 100 people were arrested during the Columbia crackdown, just a fraction of the total arrests stemming from recent campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. A summary by The Associated Press on Thursday found at least 56 incidents of arrests at 43 different US colleges or universities since April 18.
Early Thursday, officers moved once morest a crowd of protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles, eventually arresting at least 200 protesters following hundreds defied orders to leave, some people forming chains as police fired stun guns to disperse the breaking up crowds. Police tore apart a fortified camp’s barricade of plywood, pallets, metal fences and garbage cans, then pulled down awnings and tents.
As at UCLA, tent camps of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across other campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century. Iranian state television carried live images of the police action at UCLA, as did Qatar’s pan-Arab Al Jazeera satellite network. Live images from Los Angeles also played over Israeli television networks.
On April 18, the New York Police Department cleared Columbia’s initial encampment and arrested approximately 100 protesters. The protesters pitched new tents and defied threats of suspension, intensifying their action early Tuesday by occupying Hamilton Hall, an administration building that was similarly seized in 1968 by students protesting racism and the Vietnam War.
About 20 hours later, officers stormed the hall. Video shows police with zip ties and riot screens pouring through a second-floor window. Police said that protesters inside offered no substantial resistance. At some point, the officer’s gun went off inside the building. Cohen, the DA’s spokesman, did not provide additional details regarding the incident, which was first reported by news outlet The City on Thursday. The NYPD did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment.
The confrontations at UCLA also took place over several days this week. UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said during a call to alumni Thursday followingnoon that the trouble began following a permitted pro-Israel rally was held on campus Sunday and fights broke out and “live mice” later that day in the pro-Palestinian camp was thrown.
In the days that followed, administrators tried to find a peaceful resolution with members of the camp and expected things to remain stable, Block said.
That changed late Tuesday, he said, when counter-protesters attacked the pro-Palestinian camp. Campus administrators and police did not intervene or call for backup for hours. No one was arrested that night, but at least 15 protesters were injured. The delayed response drew criticism from political leaders, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and officials promised an independent review.
“We certainly didn’t think we’d end up with a large number of violent people, which hasn’t happened before,” Block said on the call.
By Wednesday, the camp had become “much more of a bunker” and there was no other solution but to have the police tear it down, he said.
The hours-long standoff began Thursday morning when officers warned over loudspeakers that there would be arrests if the crowd – at the time more than 1,000 people inside and outside the camp – did not disperse. Hundreds left voluntarily, while more than 200 remained and were eventually arrested.
Meanwhile, protest camps at other schools across the US have been cleared by police – leading to more arrests – or voluntarily closed. But University of Minnesota officials reached an agreement with protesters not to disrupt commencement, and similar compromises were made at Northwestern University in Chicago, Rutgers University in New Jersey and Brown University in Rhode Island.
Ariel Dardashti, a graduating UCLA senior studying global studies and sociology, said no student should feel unsafe at school.
“It should not come to the point where students are arrested,” Dardashti said on campus on Thursday.
People hold blankets and take down the last tents standing at a camp in support of Palestinians at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 2, 2024. Earlier in the day, officials from the University of Minnesota announced an agreement with protesters to end the encampment on the Minneapolis campus. (AP Photo/Trisha Ahmed)
Two people argue opposing views near the site of a pro-Palestinian camp, cleared overnight by police, on the UCLA campus Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Garbage is piled up at the site of a pro-Palestinian camp that was cleared overnight by police on the UCLA campus, Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
A protester is escorted out of a pro-Palestinian camp on the UCLA campus Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Pro-Palestinian protesters embrace as they charge devices at a camp on the UCLA campus Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Cleanup continues at the site of a pro-Palestinian camp, cleared by police overnight, on the UCLA campus Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
A tent is removed at the site of a pro-Palestinian camp that was cleared by police overnight on the UCLA campus Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Pro-Palestinian protesters watch police activity behind a temporary barricade on the UCLA campus Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) 1714732248
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