THE ANGELS.- Police began removing an encampment from New York University on Friday at the request of academic authorities, following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the United States that have left some 2,200 detained.
New York City police also intervened Friday to clear a camp in The New School, en Greenwich Village. Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry posted on social media site
A video posted by Daughtry showed dozens of helmeted officers gathering in front of the school on lower 5th Avenue. Details about the arrests at either NYU or the New School were not immediately released. Messages were sent to spokespeople for both schools seeking comment.
Earlier in the week, more than 100 people were detained during an eviction at Columbia University, where protests and encampments over the war between Israel and Hamas began.
An officer accidentally fired his gun inside Columbia’s Hamilton Hall building while clearing protesters camped inside on Tuesday, authorities said. No one was injured, the NYPD reported Thursday. At that moment, the uniformed man was trying to use the flashlight attached to the gun and, instead, he fired a single bullet that hit a frame in the wall.
There were other officers, but no students in the vicinity, according to authorities. Body camera footage shows the moment the officer’s gun was fired, but the district attorney’s office is conducting a review, a standard practice.
According to a count by The Associated Press, there have been at least 56 incidents of arrest at 43 colleges in the United States since April 18. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and police forces.
Early Thursday, officers swooped on a crowd of protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles, arresting about 200 after hundreds of them defied orders to leave, some forming human chains as police fired. stun grenades to break up the crowd. Police tore down a barricade fortified with plywood, platforms, metal fences and garbage containers, and tore down awnings and tents.
As at UCLA, protest camps calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread to other campuses across the country in a movement unprecedented student body in this century.
Israel has called the protests anti-Semitic, while critics say the Israeli government is using these accusations to silence the opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making anti-Semitic comments or uttering violent threats, protest organizers — some of whom are Jewish — say it is a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest against the war. in Gaza.
President Joe Biden on Thursday defended students’ right to peacefully protest but condemned the disorder of recent days.
Source: With information from AP/AFP
