"I've never seen this many police": Lawmakers condemn massive NYPD raid on Columbia protest

Early Tuesday morning, a protester on the campus of Columbia University announced that Hamilton Hall “is now liberated” and indeed renamed to honor a Palestinian child killed in Gaza. By Tuesday night, the building had been “liberated” again, this time by dozens of officers with the New York City Police Department – a show of force that came after Mayor Eric Adams alleged, without providing evidence, that the building had been occupied by “professional outside agitators.”

Columbia University echoed the “agitators” claim in a statement justifying the raid, which resulted in dozens of arrests.

“After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school said Tuesday night. “We believe that the group that broke into and occupied the building is led by individuals who are not affiliated with the University.”

That assertion came after a university official earlier warned that “students” who occupied the building “face expulsion.” Although there were no reports of violence by the campus occupiers, they did use a hammer to smash a window when they broke into the building and rejected pleas from some students that they not barricade the structure; a school facilities employee also accused protesters of holding them “hostage” for 10 minutes, the school newspaper reported

Columbia President Dr. Minouche Shafik is now asking the NYPD to stay on campus at least until commencement on May 17. That comes after Shafik admitted that an earlier request for police assistance – clearing an encampment that began as a protest of the school’s investment in companies that do business in Israel – had backfired, drawing more attention to activists’ demands and growing their ranks, at Columbia and elsewhere.

Tuesday night’s operation was on a scale previously unseen in New York, according to CNN reporter Miguel Marquez, the Columbia raid paired with a police clearing of a nearby encampment at City College of New York. “The way the NYPD came in with such force, with such precision … it’s clear, in part, this was to send a message, in part to protect themselves,” he said. “I’ve covered lots of this sort of stuff around the world, and I’ve never seen this many police moving into one area," he added.

The NYPD itself certainly viewed the evening's events as having propaganda value, particularly after Republican lawmakers seized on the protests as evidence of left-wing lawlessness. Columbia “has requested our assistance to take back their campus, which has seen disturbing acts of violence, forms of intimidation [and] destruction of property,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry posted Tuesday night. A few hours later, he shared a video of a Palestinian flag being taken down at the nearby city college campus, writing on X: “An incredible scene and proud moment as we have assisted [CCNY] in restoring order in campus, culminating in raising Old Glory once again on their campus flagpole.”

There were no confirmed reports of injuries in either police action, a possible disappointment to lawmakers and right-wing pundits who had called for President Joe Biden to deploy the National Guard.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a student group that has helped organize the campus protests, in a statement on social media accused Shafik of choosing to “militarize” the campus rather than to “divest from the genocidal State of Israel.” Shafik has said the school does not intend to comply with protesters’ demands, which would require the school to drop investments in companies such as Google and Amazon.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., urged both school leaders and the NYPD to reconsider their approach to student protests, suggesting that their actions would only incite more unrest. “Other leaders and schools have found a safe, de-escalatory path,” she posted on X Tuesday night. “This is the opposite of leadership and endangers public safety. A nightmare in the making.”

Her New York Democratic colleague, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, echoed the call for restraint. “The militarization of college campuses, extensive police presence, and arrest of hundreds of students are in direct opposition to the role of education as the cornerstone of our democracy,” he said on X.