On Wed., May 1, the New York Police Department released video of officers storming Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall, which protesters had broken into and occupied the previous night.
The 9-minute video, which is silent, shows police using a heavily armored vehicle called a Bear, which sports a raisable ramp on top, to access the building’s second floor.
Police also entered through the front doors using blow torches and other tools.
The helmet-wearing cops then make their way through the building, clearing away chaotic piles of wooden chairs that the occupiers had blocked hallways and doors with.
At one point, an officer is seen brandishing what appears to be a handgun as the officers work their way past open rooms.
The police ultimately locate the protesters — many sporting keffiyehs to hide their faces and goggles to protect their eyes from pepper spray — and arrest them en masse.
The video also shows police making arrests at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment (tent encampment) on the lawn of Columbia’s quad.
At the end of the clip, Kaz Daughtry, the deputy police commissioner for operations, is shown hoisting the American flag on a pole at City College where protesters had been flying the Palestinian flag.
Interview the protesters! Read up on the history of Palestine/Israel. Read what Jewish Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has written. There are many American Jews and Israeli Jews who hate what Israel is doing. Come on now! Very many of the protesters are Jewish. Watch Democracy Now! programs, some of which I’ve forwarded.
I’m not sure that tuition includes the right to barricade the main classroom building, at least it didn’t when I was at Columbia in 1972. All in support of murderous, Jew-killing rapists.
Thank you, Village Sun for posting. I suppose the sound track is withheld because it’s even more embarrassing. What a proud moment in NYPD and NYC history. If we need this many cops to rough up and arrest a few peaceful, unarmed college kids (several sent directly to hospital) for demonstrating on their own campus, which they paid a ton of money for, I guess I understand why we always need more and more police, more surveillance and bigger weapons. Hurrah for fascism!