US campus protests: arrests in Dallas and New York as officers move against demonstrators – live | US campus protests
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Key events
Police arrest 17 on University of Texas in Dallas campus
The University of Texas in Dallas has confirmed that 17 protesters were arrested on its campus, after police moved in at the request of university officials.
According to local media, the police operation involved dozens of state troopers in riot gear.
The entire encampment was dismantled within about 20 minutes and additional law enforcement remained on the campus until about 6pm.
Around 100 protesters are reportedly continuing demonstrations on another part of the campus.
Fordham University requested police assistance
NYPD Deputy Commissioner, Kaz Daughtry, has confirmed that Fordham University was among a number of educational institutions which requested police assistance on campus to disperse protests.
He said that individuals who refused to disperse has been arrested without incident.
Your @NYPDnews officers continue to protect the right to peacefully protest, but lawlessness will not be tolerated. I commend the professionalism consistently displayed by our officers.
In its letter to New York Police, Fordham University said it made the request with the “utmost regret”.
In light of the activities that are currently happening, we further request that you retain a presence on campus through at least May 22, 2024 (when commencement and diploma ceremonies are completed) to maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished.”
Arrests at New York’s Fordham Univeristy
New York police broke up an encampment at Fordham University a short while ago.
According to the New York Times, protesters who were arrested did not appear to resist, but stood facing a large crowd gathered outside the Manhattan campus as officers in riot gear put their hands into zip ties behind their backs.
Police detained pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrating inside one of the university’s buildings.
‘It was terrifying’: UCLA students describe violent attack on Gaza protest encampment
When Meghna Nair, a second-year student at the University of California, Los Angeles, saw a masked group of people headed toward the pro-Palestine encampment on campus late Tuesday evening, she expected trouble.
But the violence that unfolded on the public university’s campus overnight and the slow response from authorities shocked Nair and other UCLA students.
I knew where they were going. I had an idea what they planned to do. I didn’t know what to do.”
Late Tuesday night, a masked group surrounded the encampment in solidarity with Gaza, throwing fireworks and violently attacking students.
Noah, a law student who preferred to use only his first name, said he was horrified by the violence, which he described as akin to a battle.
This is like sacred ground to me. It reminded me of January 6. It was terrifying.”
Daniel Harris, a fourth-year student, said he stopped to observe the demonstrations on Tuesday evening, after the university chancellor said the encampment was “unlawful”, and could see tensions rising anew. Counter-protesters used speakers to play recordings of a crying child at a loud volume. A masked man attempted to hop the fence surrounding the encampment but was forced out by security.
Shortly after Harris witnessed a large group of people wearing black, with white masks that he said were like something from The Purge marching toward the encampment.
I was on the phone with my girlfriend, and I was like, what the fuck is happening right now? What the actual fuck? I’ve never seen this in real life. This is stuff that only happens in movies.”
University of Texas in Dallas reportedly requested assistance from police
Local media is reporting that law enforcement in helmets and carrying batons arrived at the University of Texas in Dallas (UTD) and began taking down parts of a student encampment there after a request for assistance from university officials.
It came after UTD officials approached the encampment in the afternoon on Wednesday, with a written order for students to leave.
“Failure to comply with this instruction may result in removal for criminal trespass or other violations of state law and/or sanctions under the student code of conduct as appropriate,” the letter read, according to student protesters.
Local media in are reporting that many state troopers have now left the campus at the University of Texas, Dallas. Seventeen people have reportedly been arrested after the university gave notice to protesters to remove their encampment.
The protesters are understood to have now moved to another part of the campus to continue their demonstrations.
A reminder, this latest round of disorder on US campuses began less than 24 hours ago when police arrested almost 300 pro-Palestine protesters at the City College of New York and Columbia University.
Both universities requested police intervene after students set up encampments and barricaded themselves inside university buildings.
There was a large police presence at the New York campuses before they entered and broke up the encampments.
Cuny students with the university’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment group have criticised New York police officers for what they called the “brutal and spineless” arrests of protesters.
The Guardian has put together this video summary of the events of Tuesday night in New York.
This is Jonathan Yerushalmy, picking up our live coverage from Lois Beckett
Police are everywhere on UCLA’s campus today. But where were they last night?
In the aftermath of a violent attack last night on a pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA, there are large numbers of police across the Los Angeles campus.
But students, faculty, and university and state officials still have lots of questions about where law enforcement agencies were last night, and why students were violently attacked for at least four hours while campus police and city police did not respond.
The University of California has promised an independent investigation into what happened on campus. Students at the pro-Palestine encampment that was attacked have described fearing for their lives while both campus security and police stood by and failed to intervene as young men and women where physically assaulted and sprayed with pepper spray, bear mace, and other chemical agents.
If you’re just joining us now, here’s a summary of what else has happened in campus protests across the US today:
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Michael Drake, the president of the University of California system, has ordered an independent review of the UCLA administration’s planning, after a late-night attack on a pro-Palestinian student encampment resulted in at least 15 people being injured.
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Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, confirmed that 280 people on the Columbia University and Cuny campuses had been arrested on Tuesday. Bragg has not confirmed reports from city and police officials that “outside agitators” had infiltrated student-led protests.
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Cuny students with the university’s Gaza Solidarity encampment criticized New York police officers for their “brutal and spineless” arrests of protesters. “We will not be intimidated by these brutal and spineless tactics … We will not stop until these demands are met,” read a statement from students posted on social media.
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California governor Gavin Newsom condemned the violence at UCLA. Posting on X, he criticized the “limited and delayed” law enforcement response on Tuesday night, describing it as “unacceptable”.
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UCLA cancelled all classes on Wednesday after counter-demonstrators attacked pro-Palestine protesters overnight. “Due to the distress caused by the violence that took place on Royce Quad late last night and early this morning, all classes are cancelled today,” read a statement from the university.
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Minouche Shafik, the Columbia University president, sent an email following the use of New York police to lead mass arrests at Tuesday’s protests on campus. In the email sent Wednesday, Shafik said that NYPD had been used because “students and outside activists [were] breaking Hamilton Hall doors, mistreating our Public Safety officers and maintenance staff, and damaging property … ”.
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New York police said the wife of a man convicted of terrorism was not at protests on Columbia’s campus on Tuesday, walking back claims from city and police officials. NYPD deputy commissioner Rebecca Weiner said the woman, who has yet to be publicly identified, was not a part of any protests last night and that police “have no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing on her part”, the New York Daily News reported.
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At least one high school started their own encampment in solidarity with university students at Columbia and beyond, according to a flyer from students at Iowa City’s City high.
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Police tore down encampments at the University of Wisconsin, Madison early on Wednesday, in yet another crackdown on a peaceful student protest. Several protesters, mostly students, were detained by police.
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Law enforcement in New York and Texas also made arrests and shut down pro-Palestine encampments at Fordham University in Manhattan and the University of Texas at Dallas.
Emotional testimony from young people attacked last night at UCLA
The head of UCLA’s Muslim Student Association and members of the campus’s pro-Palestine encampment are holding a press conference right now, giving emotional descriptions of the violent assaults they faced last night, from being hit in the head and requiring stitches, to being bear-sprayed in the face. The university’s chancellor has publicly condemned “a group of instigators” for coming onto campus to deliberately attack a student encampment advocating for Palestinian rights.
The young people attacked described the counter-protesters attacking them as “pro-Israel protesters” or “Zionist supporters”. Some of them are displaying the injuries they received.
“I saw women as young as 18 or 19 being punched in the face by 25- or 30-year-old men,” Aiden Doyle said.
“It was a war zone on our campus,” another student said. “We were attacked by the Zionists.”
“My son who goes here was pepper-sprayed last night, not by the police, not by the school security forces, but by thugs,” a UCLA parent said.
Yusef, who declined to give his last name, described fearing for his life and texting his family group chat during what he described “the scariest moment of my life”.
He said he ended up going to the hospital for treatment for two serious head injuries that left his head covered in blood, but said that he felt comparatively lucky.
“I had the ability to go to a hospital last night. Currently in Gaza, there is zero fully functioning hospitals,” Yusef said. “My cousins who have passed away from this brutal genocide did not have the luxury to go to a hospital after the attack.”
Multiple speakers pushed back against media coverage that framed the violence last night as a fight between two groups of protesters.
“There was no brawl. There was only was group that was abused. There was not a fight … there was only one group that was attacking,” one speaker said, to applause and cheers from the crowd. “I was here till the break of day and I went back and saw the headlines. I was shocked and I felt that if this is how the media is going to treat us, what is going to happen as we move forward?”
Officers make arrests at pro-Palestinian protests in Dallas and New York
At least 19 people were arrested as a pro-Palestinian protest encampment was cleared this afternoon at the University of Texas at Dallas, according to a local news channel, which said it was unclear whether all those arrested were students.
State troopers moved in on a peaceful protest encampment, the Associated Press and the BBC report.
“The effect of the state troopers has utterly changed the mood. There’s a lot of anger now, and chants of ‘shame on you’, ‘where were you in Uvalde’ and ‘why are you in riot gear’ are now echoing in Dallas,” BBC reporter Tom Bateman writes.
In Dallas State troopers have just forced down table barricades and have torn down gazebos and tents.
Some protesters linked hands, then dragged off by riot police. Chants not of “shame of you”, and “where were you in Uvalde”Now a standoff pic.twitter.com/ddIx7d8OvZ
— Tom Bateman (@tombateman) May 1, 2024
The arrests in Texas came as the New York police department arrested a number of people as they moved to disperse a protest at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus in New York on Wednesday.
NYPD deputy commissioner Kaz Daughtry wrote on X: “We have placed the individuals who refused to disperse from the unlawful encampment inside a @FordhamNYC building under arrest.”
NYPD department chief Jeffrey Maddrey told Fox 5 that the police department “has cleared an encampment on Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus”.
Police have arrested all remaining participants in the encampment and swept the site.
— Fordham Observer (@fordhamobserver) May 1, 2024
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