Police Raid on Columbia Protest Ignited Campus Movement

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Bernd Debusmann Jr and Emma Vardy, Gaza protests: Police raid on Columbia protest ignited campus movement. BBC, A[r 27, 2024.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68906215

Note:
(a) "Minouche Shafik, Columbia's president, made her way to Capitol Hill to face a Congressional grilling over antisemitism on campus and how she was tackling it. * * * The [Colunbia] students at the protest camp were trespassing, had refused to leave * * * she said. * * * She was sending in the NYPD."
(i) Minouche Shafik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minouche_Shafik
(1962- )
is Egyptian by birth.
(ii) "The students at the protest camp were trespassing, had refused to leave * * * she said."

She was right on state law, but law may not be the most important at this stage. Just ask Chinese students at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
(iii) "She was sending in the NYPD."

Almost all American colleges and University -- I am not talking about kidergarten to high school -- which are governed by school district -- have their own police. Its power to investigate and arrest within the campus depends on both state law and deputization by state or local government (city or town) police. Local police and campus are independent from each other.  So if one is robbed on a campus, he reports to camp[us, not local police.
(b) "At Yale, police arrived at a protest encampment in the heart of the campus in the early hours of 22 April as many students were still asleep."

The "police" refers to New Haven city police. See
Statement by Mayor Elicker on Tale University Student Protest and Successful De-Escalation by New Haven Police Department. City of New Haven, Apr 23, 2024. at 12:00 PM (in the category "Press & News").
https://www.newhavenct.gov/Home/ ... ews/429/633?npage=3

12-hour clock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-hour_clock
(table: 12:00 am = midnight. 12:00 pm = noon)

The above Wiki page uses lower case for am and pm/
--------------------------------------------BBC
Gaza protests: Police raid on Columbia protest ignited campus movement
By Bernd Debusmann Jr in New York & Emma Vardy in Los Angeles

At dawn on Wednesday 17 April, a small group of students pitched their tents at Columbia University, demonstrating against Israeli military action in Gaza and calling on their university to stop doing business with companies they see as supporting the war.

They did so as Minouche Shafik, Columbia's president, made her way to Capitol Hill to face a Congressional grilling over antisemitism on campus and how she was tackling it.

In nearly four hours of questioning that Wednesday, she defended actions she was already taking. Students, she said, were "getting the message that violations of our policies will have consequences".

The next afternoon, the Columbia president made a decision that would ignite a wildfire of protest at colleges across the United States.

The students at the protest camp were trespassing, had refused to leave and had created a "harassing and intimidating environment" for many of their peers, she said.

She was sending in the NYPD.

Soon after, officers from the largest police department in the US, wearing riot gear and wielding plastic handcuffs, arrested more than 100 students - the first time mass arrests had been made on Columbia's campus since Vietnam War protests more than five decades ago..

In nearly four hours of questioning that Wednesday, she defended actions she was already taking. Students, she said, were "getting the message that violations of our policies will have consequences".

"It was a shock to us all," said Rashida Mustafa, a doctoral student at Columbia. "I was in disbelief. But it felt like a call to action."

The outrage among students was immediate. By the next day, another protest camp was established at a different lawn just a few metres away.

It was much bigger than before, having swelled from a small number of tents to a congested campsite, complete with buffet-style meals of donated food, live performances and a "security team" at the gate watching for infiltrators.

A day later, another protest camp was set up just over 70 miles (112km) north-east of Columbia, at Yale University in Connecticut, another elite institution.

By the middle of this week, demonstrations were taking place at dozens of campuses across the country. The Columbia students had sparked a national protest movement.

How do they balance the right to protest and free speech with the need to protect other students from harm and abuse? When do they send in the police to enforce university policies, knowing heavy-handed responses will be filmed and appear instantly on millions of social media feeds?

At Yale, police arrived at a protest encampment in the heart of the campus in the early hours of 22 April as many students were still asleep. Nearly 50 students were arrested after refusing to leave, with some locking arms around a flagpole.

"They came very quickly, and with no warning. Droves of police just poured into the plaza," Chisato Kimura, a law student, told the BBC from New Haven.

"Seeing a militarised force, invited by Yale to come onto campus, was very jarring," she added. "We were peacefully protesting."

US college campuses have been a flashpoint for Gaza war protests since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people - mostly civilians - and taking 253 others back to Gaza as hostages. Since then more than 34,000 people, most of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

But the past 10 days have seen the most intense and widespread US protests of the past six months. Simmering tensions boiled over after the first Columbia camp was cleared - clashes and arrests followed elsewhere.

At the University of Texas at Austin, state troopers - some on horseback - stopped hundreds of students occupying a university lawn on Wednesday. At Emory University in Atlanta, a female professor was wrestled to the ground by a police officer, and a video of her being stopped and handcuffed went viral on Thursday.

Police have also taken on protesters at Emerson College in Boston, George Washington University in Washington DC, New York University and the University of Southern California (USC).

The protest encampments are calling on university administrators to "divest" school endowments from companies they perceive as linked to Israel's war in Gaza, cut ties with Israeli academic institutions and formally call for a ceasefire

Some Jewish students and faculty have said they fear for their safety. And these concerns are part of what has prompted university officials, including Ms Shafik, to call in police.

"Students have a right to protest," said Page Fortna, a political science professor at Columbia. "But they don't have a right to protest in a way that makes other students feel discriminated against or harassed."

In interviews this week, Jewish students at several campuses spoke of incidents that made them feel uncomfortable, ranging from chants and signs supporting Hamas, a proscribed terror group, to physical altercations and perceived threats.
--------------------------City of New Haven
NEW HAVEN, CT – On Monday, April 22nd, 2024 at approximately 6:30 am, the New Haven Police Department responded to assist the Yale Police Department regarding an ongoing protest in the area of Beinecke Plaza on the Yale University campus, where students were protesting Yale University’s decision not to divest from military weapons manufacturing and the conflict in Israel and Gaza. The Yale Police Department made arrests and cleared the area. Subsequently, protesters gathered at the public intersection of Grove Street and College Street at approximately 8 am and dispersed shortly before 5 pm at the request of the New Haven Police Department. Upon the reopening of the intersection, Mayor Justin Elicker issued the following statement:

“People have a first amendment right to free speech and to protest, and New Haven has a long history of supporting people’s ability to peacefully express their views. However, it’s also important that protests are conducted in a safe and orderly manner – and, in this situation, that Yale University students protest in a manner and place that is also respectful of New Haven residents.

Grove Street and College Street is one of New Haven’s busiest intersections, and it was important to have the area open and cleared in time for New Haveners’ evening rush hour commute and for first responders to be able to utilize those key corridors in responding to 9-1-1 emergencies across the city. I appreciate that the protest remained peaceful throughout the day and that the intersection was cleared prior to the evening commute voluntarily without incident or arrest.

I want to commend Chief Jacobson and the New Haven Police Department for exercising the highest degree of professionalism in their engagement with the Yale community, for ensuring that all protestors were able to demonstrate peacefully and safely, and for successfully working with student organizers to de-escalate the situation and ensuring a peaceful and orderly reopening of these streets to the public.”

PRESS CONTACT:
Lenny H. Speiller; (203) 725-4249; Lspeiller@newhavenct.gov