Police have arrested nearly 2,200 people during pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the United States in recent weeks, sometimes using riot gear, tactical vehicles, and flash-bang devices to clear tent encampments and occupied buildings.
One officer accidentally discharged his gun inside a Columbia University administration building while clearing out protesters camped inside, authorities said.
No one was injured by the officer’s mistake late Tuesday inside Hamilton Hall on the Columbia campus, the NYPD said Thursday. He was trying to use the flashlight attached to his gun at the time and instead fired a single round that struck a frame on the wall.
There were other officers but no students in the immediate vicinity, officials said. Body camera footage shows when the officer’s gun went off, but the district attorney’s office is conducting a review, a standard practice.
More than 100 people were taken into custody during the Columbia crackdown, just a fraction of the total arrests stemming from recent campus protests over Israel’s war on Gaza.
A tally by The Associated Press recorded at least 56 incidents of arrests at 43 different US colleges or universities since April 18. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.
Early Thursday, officers surged against a crowd of demonstrators at the University of California, Los Angeles, ultimately taking at least 200 protesters into custody after hundreds defied orders to leave, some forming human chains as police fired flash bangs to break up the crowds. Police tore apart a fortified encampment’s barricade of plywood, pallets, metal fences, and dumpsters, then pulled down canopies and tents.
Like at UCLA, tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across other campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century.
Israel has branded the protests antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition.
Protest organizers — some of whom are Jewish — call it a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest the war.
President Joe Biden on Thursday defended the right of students to peaceful protest but decried the disorder of recent days.
The demonstrations began at Columbia on April 17 with students calling for an end to Israel’s war, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there.
