Video showed Pro-Palestine protesters at UCLA appearing to brace for clashes with LAPD in riot gear after they threatened arrest for anyone who refused to leave encampments amid another night of protest across America’s universities.
There were arrests made on campuses like Ivy League Dartmouth in Rhode Island, the University of Texas at Dallas, while police also made their move, arresting 34 people on the campus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, with police saying some officers had been injured.
New York City continued to see it’s share of protests as well, with students at Fordham joining with their brethren at NYU and Columbia. Officers arrested at least 15 Fordham protesters Wednesday.
Across the country at UCLA, a large crowd of students, alumni and neighbors gathered on campus steps outside the barricaded area of tents, sitting as they listened and applauded various speakers and joined in pro-Palestinian chants.
Videos shared on social media showed crowds chanting ‘Shame on you!’ and ‘LAPD KKK!’ at the officers while others showed the demonstrators appearing unbothered by the presence of police, unlike their cross-country counterparts who fled the scene.
Police in riot gear threatened arrest with anyone who refused to leave pro-Palestinian encampments on the campus of UCLA amid another night of protest across America at various colleges
New York Police Department officers detain dozens of pro-Palestinian students at Columbia University after they barricaded themselves at the Hamilton Hall building near Gaza Solidarity Encampment
Police arrest protesters during pro-Palestinian demonstrations at The City College Of New York
Overheard television cameras showed students in the barricaded area passing out goggles and helmets, as well as setting up medical aid stations.
A small group of students holding signs and wearing T-shirts in support of Israel and Jewish people gathered nearby.
The law enforcement presence and continued warnings stood in contrast to the scene that unfolded the night before, when counter-demonstrators attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment, throwing traffic cones, releasing pepper spray and tearing down barriers.
Fighting continued for several hours before police stepped in, and no one was arrested.
At least 15 protesters suffered injuries, and the tepid response by authorities drew criticism from political leaders as well as Muslim students and advocacy groups.
Ray Wiliani, who lives nearby, said he came to UCLA on Wednesday evening to support the pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
‘We need to take a stand for it,’ he said. ‘Enough is enough.’
Elsewhere, at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, activists clashed with police officers who destroyed their tents early Wednesday, and police dismantled an encampment at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire just hours after pro-Palestinian demonstrators put up a handful of tents.
NYPD officers in riot gear enter Columbia University’s encampment as they evict a building that had been barricaded by pro-Palestinian student protesters
New York City continued to see it’s share of protests as well, with students at Fordham joining with their brethren at NYU and Columbia
The law enforcement presence and continued warnings stood in contrast to the scene that unfolded the night before, when counter-demonstrators attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment, throwing traffic cones, releasing pepper spray and tearing down barriers
Officers arrested multiple people, including at least one professor, according to local media reports.
The chaotic scenes unfolded early Wednesday after police burst into a building occupied by anti-war protesters at Columbia University on Tuesday night, breaking up a demonstration that had paralyzed the New York school.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement that ‘a group of instigators’ perpetrated the previous night’s attack, but he did not provide details about the crowd or why the administration and school police did not act sooner.
‘However one feels about the encampment, this attack on our students, faculty and community members was utterly unacceptable,’ he said. ‘It has shaken our campus to its core.’
Block promised a review of the night’s events after California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Los Angeles mayor denounced the delays.
‘The community needs to feel the police are protecting them, not enabling others to harm them,’ Rebecca Husaini, chief of staff for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said in a news conference on the Los Angeles campus later Wednesday, where some Muslim students detailed the overnight events.
Speakers disputed the university´s account that 15 people were injured and one hospitalized, saying the number of people taken to the hospital was higher.
One student described needing to go to the hospital after being hit in the head by an object wielded by counter-protesters.
There were arrests made on campuses like Ivy League Dartmouth in Rhode Island
Police dismantled an encampment at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire just hours after pro-Palestinian demonstrators put up a handful of tents
Members of UCLA faculty stand on the frontlines as protesters stand together in the encampment
Several students who spoke during the news conference said they had to rely on each other, not the police, for support as they were attacked, and that many in the pro-Palestinian encampment remained peaceful and did not engage with counter-protesters. UCLA canceled classes Wednesday.
Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century.
The ensuing police crackdowns echoed actions decades ago against a much larger protest movement protesting the Vietnam War.
In Madison, a scrum broke out early Wednesday after police with shields removed all but one tent and shoved protesters.
Four officers were injured, including a state trooper who was hit in the head with a skateboard, authorities said. Four were charged with battering law enforcement.
This is all playing out in an election year in the U.S., raising questions about whether young voters – who are critical for Democrats – will back President Joe Biden’s reelection effort, given his staunch support of Israel.
In rare instances, university officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies.
At Brown University in Rhode Island, administrators agreed to consider a vote to divest from Israel in October – apparently the first U.S. college to agree to such a demand.
Supporters of the pro-Palestinian protesters sit on stairs leading to an encampment set up by pro-Palestinian students and activists as they demonstrate on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators block the entrance to a building on the UCLA campus
Several students who spoke during the news conference said they had to rely on each other, not the police, for support as they were attacked, and that many in the pro-Palestinian encampment remained peaceful and did not engage with counter-protesters. UCLA canceled classes Wednesday
The nationwide campus demonstrations began at Columbia on April 17 to protest Israel´s offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there.
Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests antisemitic, while Israel´s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition.
Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.
Late Tuesday, New York City police officers entered Columbia’s campus and cleared an encampment, along with Hamilton Hall, where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a second-floor window, and police said protesters inside presented no substantial resistance.
The demonstrators had seized the Ivy League school building about 20 hours earlier, ramping up their presence on the campus from a tent encampment that had been there for nearly two weeks.
They encountered police clearing tents early on, as well as more than 100 arrests and threats of suspension unless they abandoned the encampment Monday. Instead, protesters took over Hamilton Hall early Tuesday.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams blamed ‘outside agitators’ on Wednesday for leading the demonstrations and repeatedly cited the presence of a woman on Columbia´s campus whose husband Adams said had been ‘convicted for terrorism.’
The woman, Nahla Al-Arian, wasn´t on Columbia´s campus this week and isn´t among the protesters who were arrested.
People look out over reenforced barriers from inside the ongoing encampment of pro-Palestinian protestors on the campus of UCLA
People link arms while gathered inside the ongoing encampment of pro-Palestinian protestors
At UCLA, a large crowd of students, alumni and neighbors gathered on campus steps outside the barricaded area of tents, sitting as they listened and applauded various speakers and joined in pro-Palestinian chants
Al-Arian, a retired elementary school teacher, told The Associated Press that Adams misstated both her role in the protests and the facts about her husband, Sami Al-Arian, a prominent Palestinian activist.
Nahla Al-Arian said she did go to Columbia for one day on April 25 to see the protest encampment there but left after she got tired.
Meanwhile, protest encampments elsewhere were cleared by the police, resulting in arrests, or closed up voluntarily at schools across the U.S., including The City College of New York, Fordham University in New York, Portland State in Oregon, Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona and Tulane University in New Orleans.
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