More than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested in NYPD Columbia University raid

The late-night NYPD raid of an occupied administration building at Columbia University resulted in the arrest of more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters amid a growing debate over who was behind the violent turn of events in the weekslong campus protest.

NYPD officers, some wielding chainsaws, climbed in through windows Tuesday night to enter Columbia’s Hamilton Hall academic building after protesters barricaded doors with bicycle locks and overturned vending machines, officials said Wednesday.

Hamilton was taken over shortly after Columbia President Minouche Shafik warned students who had set up an an encampment on the school’s main lawn they’d be subject to disciplinary action if they failed to leave.

The university’s decision to bring in the NYPD was made less than 24 hours after the takeover began. Shafik has asked the NYPD to remain on campus through May 17, two days after graduation.

In an early Wednesday morning MSNBC appearance with Mayor Adams, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Tarik Sheppard said once inside Hamilton Hall, cops found protesters had barricaded doors with heavy chain-link bicycle locks.

“This is what we encountered on every door inside Hamilton Hall,” Sheppard said while holding up one of the heavy locks. “This is not what students bring to school, OK?”

NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said 109 protesters in total were arrested at Columbia, about 50 of them inside the occupied Hamilton Hall. Another 173 protesters were arrested during a separate raid of a pro-Palestinian encampment on the City College campus in Harlem, where video posted to X showed officers tackling protesters to the ground before cuffing them.

Sheppard said there were no reported injuries during the clashes, though he added the NYPD is still “sorting through” those arrested.

Sheppard called the police raid of Hamilton Hall a “calm, precise operation.”

Charges protesters could face include burglary, trespassing and criminal mischief, according to police officials.

As more protests cropped up across the city Wednesday night, arraignments for those arrested at Columbia and City College the night before kicked off in Manhattan Criminal Court, with some being charged with assault on a police officer.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian protestors gathered in lower Manhattan’s Foley Square Wednesday afternoon and marched to Washington Square Park. At City College, hundreds more gathered.

Tuesday’s Columbia University raid sparked an ongoing debate over whether “outside agitators” were driving events on the Manhattan campus.

The mayor and members of his administration have said the escalation of pro-Palestine protests this week was spearheaded by unidentified “outside agitators,” a claim denied by student demonstration leaders.

On Wednesday, Adams said there’s evidence the demonstrators who took over Hamilton smashed security cameras and “were trained on how to barricade a location, on what type of locks to use.”

The mayor and NYPD officials declined to say how many of those arrested were “outside agitators,” citing an ongoing investigation.

Though he didn’t identify her, Adams also said the NYPD discovered that among those who have participated in the Columbia encampment is a woman whose husband is a convicted terrorist. Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence Rebecca Weiner said at NYPD Headquarters that woman wasn’t present for Tuesday night’s raid, however, and that there’s “no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing on her part.”

“But that’s not someone who I would want necessarily influencing my child if I were a parent of somebody at Columbia,” said Weiner, adding that the woman was seen on the campus last week.

Adams said Weiner’s investigation “materialized and actualized” fears he had that outside agitators were influencing student protesters.

“When I first started seeing these protests in the city, something didn’t fit right,” Adams said. “I saw similar incidents during the Black Lives Matter marches.”

“I know there are those that will say a majority of the protesters were students,” he added. “You don’t have to be the majority to influence and co-opt an operation.”

On MSNBC, Adams suggested the outside agitators may have overseas connections.

“There are people who are harmful, who are trying to radicalize our children, and we cannot ignore this. These outside influences, I don’t know if they’re international; I think we need to look into that as well,” he said. “But there’s an attempt to radicalize young people in this country.”

The mayor declined to elaborate on why he suspects there might be an international connection to the campus protests when asked by the Daily News later in the day during an unrelated event at City Hall.

Besides bike locks, videos shared by the NYPD show cops removed chairs and other furniture used as barricades during the Hamilton Hall raid. Cops said protesters also blocked the doors with building vending machines.

New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman, whose group had legal observers on the Columbia and City College campuses during the raids, said her team received reports that NYPD officers “pepper sprayed, threw to the ground, and even drew weapons on students, resulting in injuries” amid the tumult.

Lieberman also said NYPD officials prevented journalists from accessing the campuses to report during the raids. The NYPD did not return a request for comment regarding the allegations.

At a press conference at City College Wednesday evening, an adjunct faculty member at John Jay and Brooklyn Colleges also claimed she witnessed the NYPD execute excessive use of force at Columbia Tuesday night.

“During the raid, I personally witnessed several people thrown to the floor being brutalized by the police,” alleged Corinna Mullin, who was arrested at the protest. “There were violent arrests made both inside and outside of the encampment.”

Students took over the building shortly after midnight Monday amid a weekslong protest on campus against Israel’s military incursion in Gaza, which has left more than 34,000 Palestinians dead and was launched in response to Hamas terrorists killing 1,200 Israelis and taking hundreds more hostage during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Columbia’s decision to call in the NYPD marked a reversal from Shafik’s earlier statement that the university would not invite NYPD officers back after they arrested about 100 protesters as part of a day-time raid on April 18 to clear the first encampment.

Instead, Shafik said Columbia would engage in negotiations with the student protest leaders, who have demanded the university divest all its Israeli financial holdings in response to the war in Gaza.

The NYPD operation at City College, which also came at the invitation of school leaders, included officers clearing an encampment set up on the campus quad and taking dozens of people into custody.

The mass arrests just before midnight at City College followed an announcement that the Harlem college would shift to online classes “until further notice” as the campus continued to be roiled by the pro-Gaza encampment.

After clearing the City College encampment, NYPD officials, including Sheppard and Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry, were seen on video hoisting an American flag after a Palestinian flag on the campus flagpole had been removed. At NYPD Headquarters Wednesday, Adams said it was “despicable” that protesters had hoisted a Palestinian flag.

“Blame me for being proud for being an American,” the Democratic mayor said. “We are not surrendering our way of life to anyone.”

Left-leaning supporters of the pro-Palestinian protesters argued the NYPD’s campus crackdowns were counterproductive and noted they fell on the anniversary of city police officers violently breaking up a demonstration on the Columbia campus against the Vietnam War in 1968.

“On the very same day that Columbia University brought violence upon students protesting the Vietnam War, the mayor and administration have chosen to repeat history,” said Ana María Archila, co-director of the progressive New York Working Families Party.

“The violent crackdowns on students at Columbia and CCNY protesting the mass killings in Gaza are reckless, escalatory, and put the entire university community in harm’s way. … This is a shameful day in our city’s history, and one that will not be forgotten.”