Smashed windows, piled furniture left after occupation of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University

Photographs and video launched by Columbia College present overturned and stacked furnishings, damaged home windows and different injury within the aftermath of the seizure and occupation of Hamilton Corridor by protesters and its clearing by police Tuesday.

The photographs from inside Hamilton Corridor present overturned chairs, tables and different furnishings. Protesters broke home windows and precipitated different injury on the occupied corridor, college officers mentioned and pictures confirmed. Barricades had additionally been arrange.

In movies launched by the college, police with riot helmets and different gear are seen contained in the constructing, close to the piles of furnishings, recycling bins and different objects. Panes of glass contained in the constructing had been additionally smashed.

New York police used a big car with a ramp on it to get into the second-story window of the corridor on the Manhattan campus, they usually later reported that it was cleared and secured.

Police cleared the protesters in Hamilton Corridor and at protest encampments at Columbia after Mayor Eric Adams mentioned the protest in opposition to the conflict in Gaza has “principally been co-opted by skilled outdoors agitators.”

“We can not and won’t enable what needs to be a peaceable gathering to show right into a violent spectacle that serves no goal,” Adams mentioned at round 6 p.m. ET Tuesday, including, “This should finish now.”Shortly after 9 p.m., police entered the campus after Columbia requested for his or her assist.

“The occasions on campus final evening have left us no alternative,” college President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik wrote in a letter to the police division.

Shafik has been criticized by college students in addition to school members for the college’s response to protests in opposition to the conflict in Gaza, and she or he has been accused of silencing pro-Palestinian voices on the Ivy League campus.

A kind of critics was Debbie Becher, a professor of sociology at Barnard Faculty, which is an official Columbia school, who mentioned Tuesday evening on NBC Information that the administration for months “has constantly suppressed college students’ speech.”Columbia has mentioned encampments needed to go for security causes, however negotiations with college students didn’t lead to folks leaving. The occupation of Hamilton Corridor and the vandalism had been “an untenable state of affairs,” college spokesman Ben Chang mentioned Tuesday.

Practically 100 folks had been arrested, about 40 of them at Hamilton Corridor, after police moved in to clear protesters on the college’s request, officers mentioned.Shafik additionally requested police to maintain a presence on the campus by means of at the least Might 17 — two days after the scheduled Might 15 graduation. An estimated 15,000 college students are set to graduate, the college has mentioned.

Hamilton Corridor has been occupied by protesters earlier than, famously within the 1968 protest at Columbia in opposition to the Vietnam Warfare.This yr, police cleared an encampment protesting the conflict in Gaza on Columbia’s South Garden on the college’s request on April 18. Over 100 folks had been arrested. Protesters then arrange a brand new encampment.

Protesters at Columbia and at different universities have demanded that faculties divest from firms related to Israel or the conflict in Gaza.

Israel went to conflict with Hamas in Gaza after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing greater than 1,200 folks, in addition to taking hostages. Greater than 34,000 folks have been killed in Gaza, based on the Well being Ministry in Gaza.