New York mayor Eric Adams said “outside agitators” forced Columbia University to call the police as a building was seized by pro-Palestine protesters.
Hundreds of NYPD officers stormed the campus on Tuesday, 30 April, with dozens of student protesters thought to have been detained.
Law enforcement was seen entering an upper storey of the building protesters renamed Hind Hall in memory of a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza in January.
Columbia authorities said they had no choice to bring police in, describing Hamilton Hall as having been “occupied, vandalized, and blockaded”.
“Young people are being influenced by those who are professionals at radicalising our children... Outside agitators were on [Columbia] grounds training and co-opting this movement,” Mr Adams said on Wednesday (1 May).