The choir repeated in one voice: “Shame on Columbia.” Rib, 27 years old, a law master’s student, could not help but be astonished. “This is not normal at all, it is something extremely disproportionate, just seeing it causes fear and destroys the reputation of this university,” he lamented, still astonished.
The police had already cleared the protesters gathered outside the door of the elite New York University on Amsterdam Avenue and 116th Street, when an armored truck burst in with a platform full of uniformed men and many others inside. From the front, two arms were deployed to form a bridge next to a window on the second floor of the Hamilton Hall building, occupied by a group of students since the previous night.
Through that bridge, as if it were a military operation, at least 60 special agents entered that building. In this way, the cleanup carried out by the New York Police (NYPD) to end the occupation of that building and the camping on the central campus of this center in the pro-Palestine protest that demanded the end of the institution’s economic ties began. with Israel.
Columbia has become the epicenter of a student protest that has spread to numerous universities in the United States. This police action occurred at a time when uniformed intervention had begun in other centers throughout the country.
That this Tuesday was D-Day was more than clear from the early afternoon. Several trucks with fences arrived and it was an incessant flow of vans and agents in that area of ??Manhattan. And they began to cut streets.
The police assault was like watching a movie, but in real and live format. The uniformed officers, in a battlefront deployment, made more than a hundred arrests, both inside and outside. Those arrested, many of whom face suspension and even expulsion from the university, were transported in various buses, celebrating in the street, in tune with the interior of those vehicles, shouting “Freedom for Palestine” or “NYPD, KKK”, referring to the Ku Klux Klan.
After the entrance breach at Hamilton Hall, a building that connects with the historic protests against the Vietnam War of 1968 and the anti-racist fight, the special agents toured the building, where they found barricades with furniture, to arrest twenty of occupants.
Meanwhile, on campus, another large group of uniformed officers repressed the resistance of the few dozen protesters who were still camping. They made passive resistance and offered no information that there were any injuries. The operation took a couple of hours.
Nemat ‘Minouche’Shafik, rector of Columbia, had assured that she would not demand the presence of the NYPD, after on the 18th she authorized their entry to break up the camp and it was a fiasco. The operation resulted in more than 100 arrests and the unexpected effect of further encouraging the protest. Suddenly more tents and more residents appeared.
However, the imminence of the graduation party, scheduled on campus for May 15, and with the argument that the occupation of a building had exceeded all limits, Shafik “required” attendance again this Tuesday. of the police, with the agreement of the faculty, he assured. He also requested that the uniformed personnel maintain surveillance until May 17, after the celebration of the ceremony.
In the letter to the NYPD, the chancellor stated that the takeover of Hamilton Hall and the maintenance of the camp raised significant safety concerns for the individuals involved and the community as a whole.
“These activities have become a magnet for protests outside our doors, creating a significant risk to our campus and fracturing the university’s ability to continue normal activities,” he added. The mayor of New York, Eric Adams, stated that it was time to act and police sources leaked to some media that among those camped there were people outside the university.
“I think the complaint is more than justified, but they have exceeded their means,” commented Daniel, one of the numerous students who followed the operation from Amsterdam Avenue, surprised like everyone by the way in which the police entered the Hamilton Hall. “A small group among thousands of students has caused numerous problems in their daily lives, although their ability to sacrifice for a cause is admirable,” he insisted.
“It is a terrible mistake to militarize the campus,” Rib replied. “Calling the police is a danger, as was seen a few days ago. “This is going to remain in the history of Columbia,” he added.
“They are students, nothing can justify this and it only demonstrates the university’s inability to negotiate. They have not made a single concession to the protesters. It is a sign of their incompetence,” stressed Vicenç, whose father was Catalan and mother Lebanese, raised in California and a student of Evolutionary Biology. “I never imagined that this would happen, that police brutality would be committed on campus,” he concluded.
The buses continued to take away the detainees and the police began a partial withdrawal. They will still be there, as will an impressive display of fences that will make the Columbia neighborhood a neighborhood taken over by security forces. Police state in Columbia.
