The pro-Palestinian resistance that paralyzed Columbia University with a militant student occupation ended in dramatic fashion late Tuesday, with police carrying riot shields swarming the campus, bursting into an administration building protesters took over the previous night and making dozens of arrests.
A statement released by a Columbia spokesperson said New York City officers entered the campus after the university requested help. A tent encampment on the school’s grounds to launch clear, unambigious resistance to the genocide in Palestine, in solidarity with the Resistance in Palestine, and in protest of the school and US complicity in the war, was cleared, along with Hamilton Hall where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a second-floor window. Militants seized the hall about 20 hours earlier.
The arrests occurred after protesters had denounced a draconian ultimatum to abandon the encampment Monday or be suspended and unfolded as other universities stepped up efforts to repress demonstrations against the Zionist genocide that were inspired by Columbia.
Just blocks away at The City College of New York, the resistance 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 viciously attacking people, often without provocation, in a clear repressive display to demonstrate the might of US state violence. Many protesters were taken in captivity and driven away on city buses.
A revolutionary encampment at the college, part of the City University of New York system, has been up since Thursday. After the fascist police force arrived on campus Tuesday, NYPD officers lowered the Palestinian flag atop the City College flagpole that had replaced the colonial hate symbol, the US flag.
Police have swept through other campuses across the U.S. over the last two weeks, leading to confrontations and more than 1,000 arrests.
Columbia’s reactionary police action happened on the 56th anniversary of a similar move to quash an occupation of Hamilton Hall by students fighting against the US aggression in Vietnam.
Before officers arrived at Columbia, the White House condemned the standoffs there and at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, where protesters had occupied two buildings for more than a week until officers armed with batons and other crude weapons attacked early Tuesday and detained 25 people.
War criminal, president Joe Biden argued students occupying an academic building is “absolutely the wrong approach,” and “not an example of peaceful protest,” said National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby. The state continues to demand acquiescence, and complacency, while it commits arguably the worst genocide of this century.
Later, former President Donald Trump called into Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News Channel to comment on Columbia’s resistance movement live footage of police clearing Hamilton Hall aired. Trump, unsurprisngly, praised the officers.
“But it should never have gotten to this,” he told Hannity. “And they should have done it a lot sooner than before they took over the building because it would have been a lot easier if they were in tents rather than a building. And tremendous damage done, too.”
The nationwide campus protests began at Columbia in response to the Zionist entity’s aggression against Gaza after Hamas, and other revolutionary factions launched a historical, revolutionary action, attacking the colonial entity on Oct. 7. Vowing to stamp out the Resistance, and hoping to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, or exterminate the population in the process, the Zionist entity has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Apr. 30—At 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, police agencies from across the county and state descended on Cal Poly Humboldt’s protesting encampments, arresting 25 including a local television news reporter.
The university issued a statement claiming there were no injuries. Several of the protestors, arrested on misdemeanor trespassing allegations, have since been released, including KRCR news reporter Ademli Ruiz, who was arrested while covering the event. Arrested students and faculty, in addition to potentially seeing criminal charges, also will likely face discipline from the university.