Thread by @a_lkoakes

It’s been a long night.

At 8pm today, anticipating an imminent police sweep, student protestors locked arms around Hamilton Hall at #ColumbiaUniversity - renamed Hind’s Hall by protestors, in memory of 6-year-old Hind Rajab, a Palestinian girl killed by the Israeli military in January.

By 8:45, police in riot gear could be seen moving outside the closed university gates on all sides, as barricades blocked entry north of 113th street.

Minutes after 9, hundreds of police in riot gear began entering #ColumbiaUniversity campus, pushing students and journalists away from Hamilton Hall and the encampment.

At 9:25, police entered the encampment that has stood in the center of campus for almost two weeks. They began searching and overturning tents.

By 9:30, police in riot gear had begun arresting student protestors. They arrested protestors who had linked arms outside the building gates, and arrested all students occupying Hamilton Hall. We couldn’t see who was being arrested because they wouldn’t allow student or credentialed (or both) press to get closer.

Scene from outside the Amsterdam gates shortly before 10, where the NYPD ladder/truck/ramp vehicle was in position

At 10:20, about 100 non-protesting students gathered on the overpass on Amsterdam heard a loud popping/knocking noise coming from the west and fled en masse. Turned out to be about 8 NYPD who were stomping irregularly or using their batons on the ground. They told about 15 students, journalists and an ACLU legal observer we had to leave campus or enter an undergraduate dorm where many of us did not have access, until a campus security guard intervened.

Students - including a courageous cohort of @WKCRFM reporters - and faculty were told not to leave the journalism school building for more than two hours. By the time we left around 1:15, the encampment was empty.