Pro-Palestinian demonstrators clash with security guards at Columbia University

A New York City police officer keeps watch on the campus of Columbia University in New York, Monday, May 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

NEW YORK — Police officers in helmets streamed into Columbia University early Wednesday evening to remove a group of mask-clad protesters who staged a Pro-Palestinian demonstration inside the school’s main library.

Videos shared on social media showed the long line of NYPD officers entering the library hours after dozens of protesters pushed their way past campus security officers, raced into the building, then hung Palestinian flags and other banners on bookshelves in an ornate reading room. Some protesters also appeared to have scrawled “Columbia will burn” across framed pictures.

Other videos showed campus security officers barring another group of protesters from entering the library, with both sides shoving to try and force the other group aside.

The university’s president, Claire Shipman, said in a statement Wednesday evening that the protesters who had holed up inside a library reading room were asked repeatedly to show identification and to leave, but they refused. The school then requested the NYPD come in “to assist in securing the building and the safety of our community,” she said.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams subsequently said officers were entering the campus “to remove individuals who are trespassing.”

The demonstration and effort to break it up came the same evening that the U.S. Justice Department announced it had brought hate-crime charges against a man who had been repeatedly arrested at pro-Palestinian demonstrations over the past year, including one held near Columbia. An indictment charged Tarek Bazrouk, 20, with assaulting Jewish people at the demonstrations.

Columbia University in March announced sweeping policy changes related to protests following Trump administration threats to revoke its federal funding.

Among them are a ban on students wearing masks to conceal their identities and a rule that those protesting on campus must present their identification when asked. The school also said it had hired new public safety officers empowered to make arrests on campus.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian student group, said it had occupied part of Butler Library because it believed the university profited from “imperialist violence.”

“Repression breeds resistance -- if Columbia escalates repression, the people will continue to escalate disruptions on this campus,” the group wrote online.

The federal charges against Bazrouk say he kicked a person in the stomach at a protest near the New York Stock Exchange, stole an Israeli flag and punched someone in the face at a demonstration near Columbia, and punched someone wearing an Israeli flag at another Manhattan protest in January.

Bazrouk’s lawyer, Andrew Dalack, said his attorneys “look forward to zealously defending” him.

A magistrate judge said Wednesday that Bazrouk could be released on bail, but he will be held overnight pending a bail hearing before a federal judge on Thursday.