Violence, chaos erupts on college campuses as protesters and counter-protesters clash over war in GazaUpdated: 2 minutes agoDemonstrators clash at a pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA early Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Los Angeles. Dueling groups of protesters have clashed at the University of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another.
There have been confrontations with law enforcement and more than 1,300 arrests. In rare instances, university officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies. UCLA senior Edgar Gomez, who ventured outside his dorm to watch the ruckus unfold, said he saw counter-protesters tearing up Palestinian flags, and pepper spray hung in the air as the two sides fought.
Late Tuesday, New York City police officers entered Columbia’s campus and cleared a tent encampment, along with Hamilton Hall where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a second-floor window, and police said protesters inside presented no substantial resistance. They had seized the Ivy League school building about 20 hours earlier.
Negotiations between the protesters and the college ground to a halt in recent days, and the school set a Monday deadline for the activists to abandon the tent encampment or be suspended. Fabien Lugo, a first-year accounting student who said he was not involved in the protests, said he opposed the university’s decision to call in police.Officers with the New York Police Department arrest pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in New York.