The situation at Columbia University worsened on Monday night as a group of at least 200 students broke into the campus’s Hamilton Hall, with about a dozen barricading themselves inside.
Protests have been ongoing on Columbia’s campus for nearly two weeks, with students calling for an end to the war in Gaza, setting up an encampment on the campus’s West Lawn to protest around the clock.
However, Columbia officials have been facing scrutiny over the protests, which many have called anti-semitic, including the likes of President Biden and other top politicians.
In an effort to clear out the students, Columbia put in place a 2 p.m. deadline for Monday, saying it would suspend students who didn’t leave.
In response to this, the students stormed Hamilton Hall, breaking windows with hammers and barricading themselves inside as the university began suspending students.
Speaking with CNN, a New York Police Department official shared that the agency has no plans to enter the campus at this time, and the school has not made an official request.
Despite the destruction of property, the NYPD would need the school to call the department and request assistance in order to move in and make arrests.
The school has not shared what its plan for the students inside Hamilton Hall is at this point.
At dozens of colleges across the country, protests continue to rage on, with students refusing to disband their encampments.
This has resulted in a police response at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. The University of North Carolina Police detained around 30 people early Tuesday morning after they refused to leave their encampment.
The school said the police “calmly approached the group and detained approximately 30 people who refused to leave.”