Officers in the New York Police Department entered Columbia University after sunset on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after students protesting the war in Gaza broke into and occupied a campus building, according to its student radio station and The New York Times.
Police entered Hamilton Hall through a second-story window after erecting a ladder-bridge with an emergency services truck. Other officers swept an all-but-abandoned encampment on a nearby lawn, shining flashlights into tents as they searched for occupants.
Student journalists at WKCR reported that they were being forcibly herded away from the scene as officers began clearing student protesters out of the building. Columbia earlier issued a campus-wide order to shelter in place.
It was not immediately clear if arrests were being made.
NYPD officers in riot gear break into a building at Columbia University, where pro-Palestinian students are barricaded inside a building and have set up an encampment, in New York City on April 30, 2024.
Kena Betancur/Getty Images
The university confirmed in a statement issued amid the raid that it had granted the police department the authority to enter campus.
“This decision was made to restore safety and order to our community,” a spokesperson said. “We regret that protesters have chosen to escalate the situation through their actions.”
The spokesperson said that university leadership had been left with “no choice” but to turn the matter over to law enforcement after the Hamilton occupation.
“We will not risk the safety of our community or the potential for further escalation,” they said.
Scores of officers in heavy riot gear had begun gathering outside the campus, which has been closed to non-students for days, earlier on Tuesday.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
