Columbia Facilitates The Arrest Of Over 70 Student Protestors By NYPD

Two individuals were led off campus by Columbia University Emergency Medical Service in stretchers.

By Spencer Davis and Emily Pickering, Columbia Spectator

New York Police Department officers arrested around 75 protesters and led them out of Butler Library into an NYPD bus on 114th Street starting at around 7:25 p.m. in response to a pro-Palestinian protest in the Lawrence A. Wien Reading Room.

Police are leading arrested individuals out of Butler and into NYPD vans in groups of roughly 20 at a time. Two individuals were led off of campus by Columbia University Emergency Medical Service on stretchers, one of whom had their face covered by a keffiyeh and the other had their face covered by a sheet.

Acting University President Claire Shipman, CC ’86, SIPA ’94, authorized the NYPD to enter Butler Wednesday evening, she wrote in a public statement.

Over 100 other protesters picketed around campus as arrested individuals were led into police vans.

NYPD officers—including members of the Strategic Response Group—entered campus through Butler at around 7:04 p.m. Officers entered the reading room while protesters chanted, “We have nothing to lose but our chains,” according to a video posted to X by Columbia University Apartheid Divest.

“At the direct request of Columbia University, the NYPD is responding to an ongoing situation on campus where individuals have occupied a library and are trespassing,” a statement posted by the NYPD X account read.

This is the largest mass arrest on Columbia’s campus since the NYPD arrested 109 protesters during a sweep of Hamilton Hall and the second “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” in April 2024.