In Columbia and the City University of New York, police cleared protesters overnight
Police deployed a heavy presence on U.S. college campuses on Wednesday after forcibly suppressing some weeks-long protests against Israel’s war with Hamas.
Dozens of police cars patrolled the University of California, Los Angeles campus in response to violent clashes overnight when counter-protesters attacked a pro-Palestinian student camp.
At Columbia University in New York City, which has been the epicenter of the demonstrations, police were on standby after officers marched to the campus on Tuesday night to end protests there.
The sight of police officers in helmets at two of the most prestigious universities in the United States has left some students dismayed.
“I don’t think we should have a heavy police force on campus,” Mark Torre, 22, a student at UCLA, told AFP as he watched the scene from behind metal barriers.
“But more and more, day by day, I think it’s a necessary evil to at least maintain safety on campus.”
At Columbia and the City University of New York, where police cleared protesters overnight, some students criticized the “tough and aggressive” tactics used by officers.
“We were brutally attacked and arrested. And I was detained for up to six hours before being released, badly injured, I was trampled and cut,” a CUNY student who identified himself only as José told AFP.
A medical student who offered treatment to detained students when they were released described a series of injuries.
“We saw things like severe head injuries, concussions, someone was knocked out by the police at the camp, someone was thrown down the stairs,” said the student, who identified herself as Isabel.
About 300 arrests were made in Columbia and CUNY, Police Commissioner Edward Caban said at a news conference Wednesday.
Mayor Eric Adams blamed “outside agitators” for raising tensions. Columbia students denied outsiders were involved.
The university’s president, Minouche Shafik, who has been criticized for her decision to call the police, said on Wednesday that the turn of events “filled me with deep sadness.”
“I regret that it has come to this,” she said in a statement.
Wave of unrest on campus
Protesters have gathered at at least 30 U.S. universities since last month, often erecting tent camps to protest the rising death toll in Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.
The protests have posed a challenge for university administrators trying to balance free speech rights with complaints of criminal activity, anti-Semitism and hate speech.
The administration of President Joe Biden – whose support for Israel has outraged many protesters – has also tried to follow this line.
“We believe it is a small number of students who are causing this disruption, and if they are going to protest, Americans have the right to do so peacefully and lawfully,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean- Pierre, to reporters. .
Biden’s rival in the November election, Donald Trump, expressed his full support for the police response in Columbia.
“It was a beautiful thing to watch. The best of New York,” he said at a rally in Wisconsin.
“To all college presidents, I say: remove the camps immediately, defeat the radicals, and reclaim our campuses for all normal students.”
‘Illegal assembly’
On Tuesday night, police entered the Columbia campus and climbed into Hamilton Hall — barricaded by protesters — through a second-story window before removing people in handcuffs. They also cleared the large camp.
In Los Angeles, fireworks were launched as counter-protesters sprayed chemicals on the pro-Palestinian camp and tried to tear down wooden planks and metal barricades before police finally arrived.
On Wednesday, students called on loudspeakers for protesters to remain in front of a camp blocking the entrance to one of the school’s main libraries, which bore graffiti reading: “Free Gaza.”
And students at Fordham University, a Jesuit institution also in New York, launched their own protest on campus on Wednesday, according to US media.
Elsewhere, police stormed the University of Wisconsin in Madison and arrested several protesters, TV footage showed.
Police wearing helmets and batons arrived at the University of Texas at Dallas and began tearing down parts of a student camp, according to TV footage.
At the University of Arizona, police said they used “irritant chemical munitions” to disperse “an unlawful gathering.”
The war in Gaza began when Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which left around 1,170 people dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report using official Israeli data.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,500 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-administered territory.
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