Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters were arrested at college campuses across the US on Saturday after fed-up administrators said “enough is enough.”
Officials at Columbia University, meanwhile, are continuing to dither — allowing a Gaza Solidarity Encampment to remain and dropping a deadline to remove it while they negotiate with student leaders who are holding the campus hostage.
Over 200 protesters at colleges including Northeastern University in Boston, Arizona State University in Tempe, Indiana University in Bloomington and Washington University in St. Louis were arrested Saturday.
Videos shared online Saturday showed varying stages of chaos unfolding at the protests, including clashes between anti-Israel demonstrators and law enforcement to students being dragged away by their feet.
Protesters at Indiana were captured on video singing “Free, free Palestine,” and holding open umbrellas pointed toward cops and state troopers as they backed away from the charged-up group.
Later footage shows clashes between protesters and law enforcement, who arrested 23 rowdy protesters on Saturday.
Video shows the protesters linking arms as riot police pushed forward with shields. One clip shows at least four officers dragging off a single protester by the back of their shirt before officers dismantled the student encampment.
Earlier in the week, 33 people had been arrested at an encampment that school officials said was intended “to occupy the university space indefinitely.”
Meanwhile, chaotic footage taken at Washington University shows officers charging at protesters, who stood with their arms locked together before some were dragged away by their feet.
Over 80 arrests were made at the St. Louis campus and the school was locked down Saturday evening as the massive group refused to leave.
Among those arrested was Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who was confronted outside Columbia University just a day earlier for being “in the minority” and representing “the 1%” of Jews in opposition to Israel’s war against Hamas.
Stein’s Campaign Manager Jason Call and Deputy Campaign Manager Kelly Merrill-Caye were also arrested.
The protests at Washington University were demanding an end to the war in Gaza and calling on the university to cut all ties with Boeing over its work with the Israeli military.
Boeing employs more than 17,000 workers in the St. Louis area, which has a deep connection to the aerospace industry.
At least 102 protesters at Northeastern University in Boston were arrested Saturday after setting up an encampment on the campus that drew in over 100 supporters.
It was not immediately clear if all those arrested were students, though the university said students who showed their school IDs were being released.
An additional 69 protesters were also arrested across the country at Arizona State University after setting up an unauthorized encampment, which university officials instructed the group to dismantle multiple times before authorities began arresting the group.
Meanwhile, protests remained ongoing at Columbia, despite the university’s administration setting Friday as the intended deadline to remove the encampments that first popped up on campus on April 17.
Over 700 protesters have been arrested on college campuses across the country since April 18, when Columbia first called in the NYPD to try and clear the encampment.
