Fuck The Cops. Fuck This System. Free Palestine.
What happened on Tuesday night was terrifying. But it’s also a sign that this is working.
On Tuesday evening, just after 9 p.m., hundreds of New York City Police officers swarmed Columbia University to clear students from an encampment formed in protest of the genocide in Gaza.
Things have been escalating on campus for weeks—a previous encampment was cleared earlier last month—but things hit a fever pitch in recent days after protesters occupied Columbia’s Hamilton Hall. The activists flew a Palestinian flag from the building and hung a banner from the second floor that read “Hind’s Hall” in honor of 6-year-old Hind Rajab, a Palestinian girl who was killed, along with much of her family, by Israeli forces in February.
The raid was authorized by Columbia President Minouche Shafik, and it’s an understatement to say that the cops took on the task with gusto. They deployed what seemed to be every police officer in the city in full riot gear, along with military vehicles which were used to enter Hamilton Hall through a second floor window. Dozens of protesters were placed in zip ties and arrested, while elsewhere on campus, faculty and staff were instructed to shelter in place or risk being arrested themselves. One protester was thrown down the Hamilton Hall steps.
At the same time, police were also violently clearing an encampment at City College of New York. Hell Gate reported that “cops slammed protesters into cars, pulled them to the ground, knelt on top of them, and targeted protesters seemingly at random.”
The night wasn’t finished. Over on the West Coast, a pro-Israel mob descended on an encampment at UCLA and proceeded to run riot while cops looked on.
Watching this unfold in real time was disorienting and surreal. Even with the buildup to the moment, with demonstrations spreading across the country and the bureaucratic response becoming more militaristic, the outsized response to these student demonstrations was simply staggering.
Following the NYPD’s actions, Columbia released a statement blaming the protesters for what had transpired. “We regret that protesters have chosen to escalate the situation through their actions. After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the statement said. Students who occupied the building face potential suspension, and charges of burglary, criminal mischief, and trespassing.
Hours before the raid, NYC Mayor Eric Adams said during a press conference that the protest had been "co-opted” by outsiders, which was echoed by Columbia.
“We believe that the group that broke into and occupied the building is led by individuals who are not affiliated with the University,” it said.
The assertion is an interesting one. It either puts the NYC government and Columbia among those who can’t believe that students could simply be protesting genocide and America’s role in it, or suggests a level of intimate knowledge of the situation that you’d think would come with more details. Or it was nothing more than a talking point to justify what was to come, and to open the door for violence. Time will tell, but coming from two institutions that have shown their asses several times over the last few weeks (and long before that), I know where I’d place my bets on that one.
The events of Tuesday night also arrived carrying the weight of some jaw-dropping irony. Fifty-six years ago to the day, students at Columbia took over Hamilton Hall to protest the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, among other things. Cops invaded, hundreds of people were arrested, and dozens were injured. The university has a “new perspective” on that incident now, but the vantage point apparently doesn’t permit them to see what’s right in front of their face.
That’s fine, because things aren’t going to stop after April 30th, 2024, a day that Columbia will surely blog about with regret in another 56 years. The spread of demonstrations will only continue, and if this week is any indication, so will the authoritarian response. It happened at the University of Texas in Austin, and at the University of New Mexico, and at City College. People will keep showing up, and students are more empowered than ever before to report on what’s happening themselves, just as Columbia’s student radio station, WKCR, did last night.
What happened on Tuesday will only serve to reinforce what we already knew: That in the U.S., if enough people assemble to protest something the state is hellbent on preserving, the cops will be deployed to stop it by any means necessary. All in the name of control. All so that Israel can continue murdering people in Gaza.
It did not need to come to this, but that’s how scared these institutions are about the groundswell that’s happening. It puts a question that’s been on many minds recently into stark view: what, exactly, are institutions like Columbia and City College for? Who are they for? And what purpose do they serve?
While we sort through those thornier questions, a few things are crystal clear. After many long months of protests and activism opposing the genocide of Palestinians, something new is happening. Now the mission is to not let the campus protests distract from the point: ending the atrocities in Gaza. So say it with me: fuck the cops. Fuck this system. Free Palestine.
I thought Biden might squeeze by with the abortion issue. I think it might be a landslide for Trump now. Sacrificing his presidency for the power of the empire
These people will never be on the right side of history. And when Biden loses in November, him and all his idiot cronies will have no one but themselves to blame.