OAN’s Taylor Tinsley
2:37 PM – Monday, April 22, 2024
As Columbia University moved all classes online amid anti-Israel protests taking place around campus, the New York Police Department (NYPD) said it’s keeping a heavy presence outside where it’s considered public property.
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During a press conference on Monday, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Michael Gerber emphasized that the New York campus is private property.
“Absent exigency, absent some ongoing crime, we cannot just go on the Columbia campus as we see fit,” Gerber said. “It is up to the university to decide whether or not they want us on campus. As a general matter, Columbia University and this goes back many years, does not want NYPD present on campus. That is their decision.”
The NYPD, however, said property damage or any sort of criminality, including harassment or threats, “will not be tolerated.”
113 protesters were arrested on the campus last week, only after university president Minouche Shafik sent a letter asking the NYPD for help.
Faculty from Columbia staged a walkout Monday in solidarity with student protesters, over the university’s decision to call police on pro-Palestinian students.
Dozens of protesters pitched tents to camp out around the university’s west lawn stocked with food, clothes and signs, one reading “Welcome To The People’s University Of Palestine.”
A well-known Rabbi at Columbia urged Jewish students to stay home on Sunday.
“The events of the last few days, especially last night, have made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy,” said Rabbi Elie Buechler.
A Jewish professor at the university said he was blocked from entering the main campus on Monday. He also said the school deactivated his key card.
Video footage captured Jewish students protesting antisemitism on campus over the weekend.
Witnesses said they were quickly met by threats and hate speech. One pro-Palestinian protester even held a sign with an arrow pointing toward the Jewish protesters, saying that they were Hamas’s next target.
Governor Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) visited the university to discuss antisemitism and the need to protect public safety on Monday.
“I’ve never seen a level of protest that is so person to person, that is so visceral,” Hochul said. “And I’m calling on everyone. People need to find their humanity, have the conversations, talk to each other, understand different points of view, because that’s what college students should be doing.”
All 10 House Republicans from New York called on Columbia’s president to resign Monday, saying the campus has been overrun by “anarchy.”
New England Patriots owner and founder of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, Robert Kraft, also pulled his support for the university.
In a statement posted to X (Twitter), Kraft said “The school I love so much – the one that welcomed me and provided me with so much opportunity – is no longer an institution I recognize.”
Meanwhile, during an event for Earth Day in Virginia on Monday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) commended the “peaceful protests” on Ivy-League campuses.
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