More than 100 students and staff were arrested at New York University (NYU) last night as protests around the Israel-Hamas war reached a boiling point.
Recent days have seen an escalation of long-running largely pro-Palestinian protests in some of the country’s most prestigious educational establishments.
Protesters at NYU, Columbia and Yale have made various demands of their universities, including that they end their relationships with universities in Israel, take stronger action over the war and divest from military weapons manufacturers who have links to Israel.
It has led to growing tensions on campus which have become hotbeds for protest, as some Jewish students have said they have been left fearing for their safety.
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Mass demonstrations have swept US universities since the 7 October attacks by Hamas, and Israel’s responsewhich is reported to have killed over 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Protests reached boiling point on Monday night as universities took action and police were called in.
At NYU, officers moved on the crowds shortly after they set the demonstration a 4pm deadline to disperse, and claimed that protesters were joined by people “whom we believe were not affiliated with NYU”.
Several tents had been set up in the plaza where many were protesting in. A group of pro-Israel counter-protesters had also been in the plaza Monday afternoon.
On Monday evening, a line of university staff members linked arms in front of the protesters to protect them from police before they were arrested and taken away themselves.
As demonstrators tussled with officers they chanted: “We will not stop, we will not rest. Disclose. Divest.”
Police appeared to use mace on protesters, with one student saying it was used “liberally”.
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A spokesperson for the NYPD confirmed that 120 people were taken into custody – 116 of whom were released with summonses for trespass, giving them a future date to appear before a judge or magistrate.
The remaining four were issued with desk appearance tickets for more serious offences – meaning they are required to appear at a criminal court on a future date.
NYPD deputy commissioner Kaz Daughtry said the university had requested for police to come to the campus, adding: “Our officers responded to the location without delay and dispersed the crowd – making numerous arrests, as necessary.”
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At Yale University in Connecticut, protests were reported to have grown to “include several hundred people – Yale undergraduates, graduate and professional students, and people with no Yale affiliation”, according to a statement from the university.
It added that the Yale Police Department issued summonses for 47 students.
Last week, more than 100 students at Columbia University in New York were arrested after the administration called to report the students as a danger to campus.
NYPD chief of patrol John Chell told the student newspaper there were no reports of violence or injuries and that the students were “peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever.”
Robert Kraft, a major donor to Columbia who is Jewish and the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, has threatened to pull his money from the university, saying: “I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken.”
Pro-Palestinian protests have also been set up at the University of Michigan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.
The NYPD, NYU and Columbia have all been approached for comment.
Students, charged and released with a date in court, are here now to collect their belongings. They’re missing bags, belts, shoes, all lost in the chaos of the night before.
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From the very heart of the protest encampment, our cameras had captured the chaos.
Officers moving in. Tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse. Stun grenades to disorientate.
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They were scenes which have stirred an already fevered debate about Israel and Gaza, yes, but about much more too. About America, about policing, and about free speech too.
President Biden said yesterday: “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations – none of this is a peaceful protest.”
‘Wrong’ say the protesters. Their movement, they say, is the very essence of protest; of civil disobedience which is threaded through US college campus history.
They reject any notion that they are threatening or violent. Yet the deeply divisive history of the Israel-Palestine conflict ensures that the beholder will so often be offended by the actions of the other side.
It was the students perceived antisemitism through their pro-Palestinian slogans which had drawn a group of pro-Israel protesters to the encampment earlier in the week.
The chaos of that night was reflected in a statement by the university’s student radio station which has been covering every twist.
“Counter protestors used bear mace, professional-grade fireworks and clubs to brutalize hundreds of our peers, UCLA turned a blind eye. Police were not called until hours into the onslaught and stood aside for over an hour as counter-protestors enacted racial, physical and chemical violence,” the statement from the UCLA Radio Managerial team said.
Watching the clear-up after the nighttime police sweep of the protesters I spotted two people embracing. A young man and an older woman.
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3:17
Professor recalls violent arrest at protest
It turned out to be a thread of history. One was a student who’d been arrested the night before.
The other was a student from a past time. Diane Salinger had been at New York’s Columbia University in 1968, at protests which now form a key chapter in American history.
“I’m so proud of these people here. I’m so proud,” she told me.
“You know the civil unrest of the students back in ’68 and it continued for several years, it actually changed the course of the Vietnam War and hopefully this is going to do the same thing.”
But then, back at the police station, a conversation that hints at the wider challenges for America.
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‘Tom’ is a protester who wanted to remain anonymous – a graduate who feels politically deserted in his own country. For him, no government is better than any on offer.
“The problem with our system is that we can’t rely on the police, we can’t rely on the military to keep us safe.
“When we need to make our voices heard, we need to make them heard, and the only way to do that without being repressed is by keeping each other safe and I think that last night and the last few months have really exemplified that,” he told me.
These protests are about more than Gaza. They are aligning a spectrum of dissent.
A scuba dive boat captain has been jailed for four years for criminal negligence over a fire that killed 34 people.
Captain Jerry Boylan was also sentenced to three years supervised release by a federal judge in Los Angeles, California.
The blaze on the vessel named Conception in September 2019 was the deadliest maritime disaster in recent American history.
Boylan was found guilty of one count of misconduct or neglect of ship officer last year.
The charge is a pre-Civil War statute, known colloquially as seaman’s manslaughter, and was designed to hold steamboat captains and crew responsible for maritime disasters.
In a sentencing memo, lawyers for Boylan – who is appealing – wrote: “While the loss of life here is staggering, there can be no dispute that Mr Boylan did not intend for anyone to die.
“Indeed, Mr Boylan lives with significant grief, remorse, and trauma as a result of the deaths of his passengers and crew.”
The Conception was anchored off Santa Cruz Island, 25 miles south of Santa Barbara, when it caught fire before dawn on the final day of a three-day voyage, sinking less than 30 metres from the shore.
Thirty-three passengers and a crew member died, trapped below deck.
Ms Wilson bought her most recent ticket at Family Food Mart in the US town of Mansfield and the shop will receive a $10,000 (£7,900) bonus for its sale of the ticket, according to the Massachusetts State Lottery.
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She bought her first $1m winning ticket at Dubs’s Discount Liquors in the same town.