More than 2,100 arrests were made during pro-Palestinian protests on American college campuses

Police advance on pro-Palestinian protesters on the UCLA campus on Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)

Los Angeles – Police have arrested more than 2,100 people in recent weeks during pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the United States, sometimes using riot gear, tactical vehicles and flash devices to clear tent camps and occupied buildings. An officer fired his gun inside a Columbia University administration building as he cleared protesters camped there, a prosecutor confirmed.

No one was injured as a result of the officer’s actions late Tuesday in Hamilton Hall on Columbia’s campus, according to Doug Cohen, a spokesman for District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office. Cohen said Thursday that the gun did not appear to be pointed at anyone and that there were other officers but no students in the immediate area. Bragg’s office is conducting an investigation, a standard practice.

More than 100 people were taken into custody during the Columbia crackdown, just a fraction of the total number of arrests resulting from recent campus protests over the war between Israel and Hamas. A count by The Associated Press on Thursday shows that there have been at least 50 arrests at 40 different U.S. colleges and universities since April 18.

On Thursday morning, officers advanced on a crowd of demonstrators at the University of California, Los Angeles, eventually taking at least 200 demonstrators into custody after hundreds defied orders to leave. Some formed human chains as police fired flash bangs to disperse the crowd. Police tore down a fortified encampment’s barricade of plywood, pallets, metal fences and dumpsters, then pulled down canopies and tents.

As at UCLA, tent camps of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread to other campuses across the country in a student movement unlike any this century. Others. Iranian state television broadcast live footage of the police crackdown at UCLA, as did Qatar’s pan-Arab Al Jazeera satellite network. Live footage from Los Angeles was also played on Israeli television networks.

Israel has branded the protests as anti-Semitic, while Israel’s critics say it is using the accusations to silence the opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making anti-Semitic comments or violent threats, 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 students’ right to peaceful protest but denounced the disorder in recent days.

The demonstrations began in Columbia on April 17, with students calling for an end to the war between Israel and Hamas, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there. Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages in an attack on southern Israel on October 7.

On April 18, the NYPD cleared Columbia’s original encampment and arrested approximately 100 protesters. The demonstrators set up new tents, defied threats of suspension, and escalated their actions early Tuesday by occupying Hamilton Hall, an administration building similarly seized in 1968 by students protesting racism and the Vietnam War.

About twenty hours later, officers stormed the hall. Video showed police with zip ties and riot shields pouring through a second-floor window. Police had said demonstrators inside offered no substantial resistance. At one point, the officer’s gun went off in the building. Cohen, the district attorney’s spokesman, did not provide additional details about the incident, which was first reported Thursday by news station The City. The NYPD did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment.

The confrontations at UCLA also took place over several days this week. UCLA Chancellor Gene Block told alumni on a phone call Thursday afternoon that the trouble began after a permitted pro-Israel rally was held on campus Sunday and fighting broke out and “live mice” were thrown into the pro-Palestinian camp later that day .

In the following days, administrators tried to find a peaceful resolution with members of the camp and expected things to remain stable, Block said.

That changed late Tuesday, he said, when counterprotesters attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment. Campus administrators and police did not intervene or call for reinforcements for hours. No one was arrested that night, but at least fifteen protesters were injured. The delayed response drew criticism from political leaders, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and officials promised an independent review.

“We certainly didn’t think we would end up with a large number of violent people, that had never happened before,” Block said during the call.

By Wednesday, the encampment had become “much more of a bunker” and there was no other solution than to have police dismantle it, he said.

The hours-long standoff began Thursday morning when officers warned over loudspeakers that arrests would be made if the crowd – at the time more than a thousand people both inside and outside the encampment – ​​did not disperse. Hundreds left voluntarily, while more than 200 more stayed behind and were eventually taken into custody.

Meanwhile, protest camps at other schools in the US have been cleared by police — leading to more arrests — or voluntarily closed. But officials at the University of Minnesota reached an agreement with protesters not to disrupt commencement, and similar compromises have been made at Northwestern University in suburban Chicago, Rutgers University in New Jersey and Brown University in Rhode Island.

Ariel Dardashti, a UCLA senior studying global studies and sociology, said no student should feel unsafe at school.

“It should not get to the point where students are arrested,” Dardashti said on campus Thursday.

Watson reported from San Diego, Keller from Albuquerque, New Mexico and Thompson from Buffalo, New York. Associated Press journalists from around the country contributed to this report, including Kavish Harjai, Krysta Fauria, Leslie Ambriz, John Antczak, Christopher L. Keller, Lisa Baumann, Stefanie Dazio, Jae C. Hong, Colleen Long, Karen Matthews, Sarah Brumfield, Carolyn Thompson, Philip Marcelo, Steve Karnowski and Eugene Johnson.

Pro-Palestinian protesters hug each other as they charge devices at an encampment on the UCLA campus on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)

Trash is piled up at the site of a pro-Palestinian encampment that was cleared by police on Thursday, May 2, 2024, on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Manpower washes the ground as cleanup efforts continue at the site of a pro-Palestinian encampment cleared by police overnight on the UCLA campus, Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Cleanup continues at the site of a pro-Palestinian encampment, which was cleared by police overnight, on the UCLA campus on Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

A tent is removed from the site of a pro-Palestinian encampment that was cleared by police on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

People hold blankets and take down the last tents standing at an encampment in support of Palestinians at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 2, 2024. Earlier in the day, University of Minnesota officials announced an agreement with protesters to end the encampment on the Minneapolis campus. (AP Photo/Trisha Ahmed)

Tents and trash are left at the site of a pro-Palestinian encampment that was cleared by police on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

A sign is removed at the site of a pro-Palestinian encampment that was cleared by police on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Police confront pro-Palestinian protesters at an encampment on the UCLA campus on Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Police advance on pro-Palestinian protesters at an encampment on the UCLA campus on Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Police enter an encampment set up by pro-Palestinian protesters on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Pro-Palestinian protesters watch police activity behind a makeshift barricade on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A protester is escorted from a pro-Palestinian encampment on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Two people argue opposing views near the site of a pro-Palestinian encampment, which was cleared by police overnight, on the UCLA campus on Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)