On the Ground at the NYPD Raid on the City College Gaza Solidarity Encampment

New York Focus was on the scene as cops shoved, kettled, and chased students at City College, the second campus where the NYPD razed a protest encampment Tuesday. Last week, as national news outlets trained their focus roughly 20 blocks downtown, on demonstrations at Columbia University, students at City College erected the camp to protest the Israeli war and siege on Gaza, which has killed at least 34,000 people and led to mass starvation. They demanded that the City University of New York system disclose and divest from all of its financial ties to Israel.

For five days, the City College encampment attracted students and faculty, many of whom slept there. Tents and flags covered the green, as did hand-painted signs denouncing the war. Donated food and supplies kept participants fed, as organizers facilitated teach-ins, encampment assemblies, prayer, and activities for faculty members’ children.

“It was one of the most beautiful and incredible displays of solidarity I’ve seen,” said Yael, a CUNY Graduate Center student who gave only their first name, praising the organizers’ emphasis on keeping attention focused on the US-backed assault on Gaza.

Then, the NYPD rolled in.

By 11 PM, it became clear that those reports were accurate. Outside campus, CUNY students and supporters gathered at the front entrance, linking arms to create a barrier between a growing hoard of cops and the locked gate. Some held signs: “Teachers for a free Palestine,” “Hunter [College] students say: Defend pro-Palestinian protestors.” Their chants accused city officials of “supporting genocide” in Gaza, where Israeli bombardment has reduced all of the strip’s dozen universities to rubble.

Unmarked police cars, paddy wagons, and an NYPD bus rushed to City College. Hundreds of officers wearing helmets and wielding batons — including members of counterterrorism units and the notorious Strategic Response Group — took over the street.

Officers formed lines outside the front gate. With batons and barricades, they pushed students and tore apart the human chain. A Staten Island-based SRG officer ripped one demonstrator from the group, and others took keffiyeh-clad adolescents to the ground. Rounds of tug-of-war ensued as screams filled the air.

Across the street, supporters formed another protest group — and faced their own police aggression. Using batons, cops pushed them down the street, out of view of the front gate.

“I ended up on the ground at least three times,” said Yael. “There were elderly people there who were falling into other people. They were crushing us into each other.”

The cops took roughly half an hour to arrest or push away most of the demonstrators stationed in front of the gate to campus. “They outnumbered us,” said City College student Marlene McKinney.

Then, despite the college’s 6 AM dispersal deadline, the NYPD broke through the gate. A crowd of cops marched toward the encampment occupants, who had linked arms at the pole with the Palestinian flag. “It felt like a military force was descending on the encampment,” Orlov-Sullivan said.

The NYPD refused reporters access to campus as officers destroyed the encampment and, according to Orlov-Sullivan, threw students to the ground. (“Use your zoom,” an officer told New York Focus, gesturing to a camera.) The department did bring its own cameras, recording material for a dramatic five-minute action montage of what it portrays as officers’ tactical valor.

Cops escorted arrestees out of the campus. Dozens of police officers remained on the street, so Orlov-Sullivan, broadcasting live on Instagram, read out some of their badge numbers.

The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.

As they waited to board a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus that would take them to police headquarters, the zip-tied protesters chanted for a free Palestine.

City officials repeatedly claimed that the protests were “led” by “professional” “outside agitators.” Reporters, including from New York Focus, have asked the city and the NYPD multiple times for details about non-students and faculty arrested at the encampments.

A CNN reporter tweeted on Thursday that per the NYPD, 134 of the 282 people arrested at City College and Columbia were not “affiliated” with either school. The figures include people arrested both outside and within the gates at the two universities, and the definition of “affiliated” is unclear. City College students pointed out that while access to the campus was restricted while the encampment was present, most days, the space is billed as open and inclusive to the community.

“It’s a very public area, it’s public-funded,” said McKinney. “When it’s warm outside, you’ll usually see people who aren’t students.”

“I don’t think it’s true,” said Orlov-Sullivan, referring to the outside agitators theory. “Even if there is such a thing as somebody who is fully outside of the City College of New York community.”

As the police repeated claims of outsiders, they also neglected to acknowledge the protesters’ stated motivation: the war on Gaza.