Police enter Columbia University amid protests

Outside the eight-story, neo-classical building - the site of various student occupations on the Manhattan campus dating back to the 1960s - protesters blocked the entrance with tables, linked arms to form a barricade and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans. At an evening news briefing held a few hours before police entered Columbia, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall takeover was instigated by "outside agitators" who lack any affiliation with Columbia and are known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness.

New York City police entered Columbia University Tuesday evening in an apparent effort to disperse pro-Palestinian protesters who seized and occupied a classroom building and have been encamped on the campus for two weeks. TV images showed police entering the elite university located in upper Manhattan, which has been the focal point of student protests that have spread to dozens of schools across the U.S. Columbia University officials earlier on Tuesday threatened academic expulsion of the students who seized Hamilton Hall.

The occupation began overnight when protesters broke windows and seized Hamilton Hall, where they unfurled a banner reading "Hind's Hall," symbolically renaming the building for a 6-year-old Palestinian child killed in Gaza by the Israeli military. Outside the eight-story, neo-classical building - the site of various student occupations on the Manhattan campus dating back to the 1960s - protesters blocked the entrance with tables, linked arms to form a barricade and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.

At an evening news briefing held a few hours before police entered Columbia, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall takeover was instigated by "outside agitators" who lack any affiliation with Columbia and are known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness. Police said they based their conclusions in part on escalating tactics in the occupation, including vandalism, use of barricades to block entrances and destruction of security cameras.

Adams suggested some of the student protesters were not fully aware of "external actors" in their midst. "We cannot and will not allow what should be a peaceful gathering to turn into a violent spectacle that serves no purpose. We cannot wait until this situation becomes even more serious. This must end now," the mayor said.

One of the student leaders of the protest, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian scholar attending Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs on a student visa, disputed assertions that outsiders had initiated the occupation. "They're students," he told Reuters.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)