Dozens of New York University students and professors were arrested Monday night for refusing to disperse from an anti-Israel encampment established at the Manhattan campus’ Gould Plaza earlier in the day.
Videos posted on X showed a chaotic scene as police buses rolled in and dozens of NYPD officers donning riot gear descended into the crowd and started making arrests and tearing down tents.
Police said the protesters were arrested for “disorderly conduct” and unlawfully blocking traffic, reported Washington Square News, NYU’s student newspaper.
After the arrests, more demonstrators lit flares and marched to the jailhouse, chanting anti-Israel slogans in the city’s streets as Jewish residents observed Passover.
#NOW ENCAMPMENT RAIDED – Massive Police Presence REMOVE TENTS, Mass Arrests at NYU "Liberated Zone".
Video by @yyeeaahhhboiii2 Desk@freedomnews.tv to license pic.twitter.com/itqDUq7YN2
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) April 23, 2024
#NOW Pro-palestine Protesters LIGHT FLARES march through China Town to "FLOOD 1PP" for Jail support.
1PP is 1 Police Plaza, NYPD headquarters. pic.twitter.com/pcvhT8XpEJ
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) April 23, 2024
Tensions continued to mount as two officers were involved in an altercation with protestors, WSN reported:
After a protester was arrested at the intersection of LaGuardia Place and Third Street, the two police officers who apprehended them were approached by a group of protesters. The police appeared to use pepper spray on those nearby, including a legal observer and protesters who were trying to force the officers to release the arrested individual. The officers then made their way to the Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life, which was locked, followed by the protesters. Police then went to the Kimmel Center for University Life, where they were let in by Campus Safety officers. Protesters were not allowed inside Kimmel, and were banging on the building’s doors.
The scene at NYU was similar to one that played out earlier in the day at Yale University, where police arrested nearly 50 pro-Palestinian student protesters who had also set up a campus tent occupation. One Jewish student journalist said she was stabbed in the eye Saturday night at the Ivy League institution amid the campus turmoil.
At Columbia University, pro-Palestinian students also set up an encampment on Monday, this despite police officers last Friday clearing the tents and arresting roughly 100 students who took part. As The College Fix also reported, a Jewish professor was denied entrance onto campus where the protest encampment was located, video posted to X showed. Classes Monday were canceled at Columbia to protect Jewish students as tensions flared.
The New York Times reported Monday there “were reports of encampments at universities in the Boston area, including at Tufts, Emerson and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in some other parts of the country, including at the University of Michigan and University of California, Berkeley.”
Originally published by College Fix. Republished with permission.
For more great content from School Reform News.
For more from The Heartland Institute.