NYC Mayor Eric Adams without evidence blamed “outside agitators” for occupying campus building.
Early Tuesday morning, a protester on the campus of Columbia University announced that Hamilton Hall “is now liberated” and indeed renamed to honor a Palestinian child killed in Gaza. By Tuesday night, the building had been “liberated” again, this time by dozens of officers with the New York City Police Department – a show of force that came after Mayor Eric Adams alleged, without providing evidence, that the building had been occupied by “professional outside agitators.”
Columbia University echoed the “agitators” claim in a statement justifying the raid, which resulted in dozens of arrests.
“After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school said Tuesday night. “We believe that the group that broke into and occupied the building is led by individuals who are not affiliated with the University.”
That assertion came after a university official earlier warned that “students” who occupied the building “face expulsion.” Although there were no reports of violence by the campus occupiers, they did use a hammer to smash a window when they broke into the building and rejected pleas from some students that they not barricade the structure; a school facilities employee also accused protesters of holding them “hostage” for 10 minutes, the school newspaper reported
Columbia President Dr.
