Police and pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed at Brooklyn College on Thursday, in the second major confrontation at a New York City campus in two days.
Some of the confrontations, including the tasering of a man who was being arrested, took place outside the Tanger Hillel House at Brooklyn College, the center for Jewish life on campus.
Seven people were reportedly arrested in the incident, which came a day after police arrested 80 people when pro-Palestinian protesters briefly occupied the main library at Columbia University and amid a flare nationally in pro-Palestinian student activism.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration was investigating the visa statuses of the 75 or more people arrested at Columbia, which is the epicenter of the administration’s effort to crack down on colleges with pro-Palestinian protests. He did not immediately respond to the incident at Brooklyn College.
There, protesters set up a “Liberated Zone” on the main quad, erecting tents and making demands that included divestment from Israel by the City University of New York system.
The extremist anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime soon exhorted its followers to turn out to support the protesters. On X, it wrote in all caps: “They need your support! Wear kuffiyehs and masks! Bring flags! And come in groups!”
The group added, “Brooklyn College is in a heavily Zionist neighborhood so be on high alert,” ending with a series of Palestinian flag emojis. Brooklyn College is at the intersection of Flatbush and Midwood neighborhoods, where many residents are Orthodox Jews.
Brooklyn College said it called in the NYPD on Thursday afternoon because the demonstrators had violated the school’s prohibition on putting up tents and ignored repeated requests to remove them. Many schools adopted or reinforced rules against tents after last year’s pro-Palestinian encampment movement.
“The safety of our campus community will always be paramount, and Brooklyn College respects the right to protest while also adhering to strict rules meant to ensure the safe operation of our university,” the spokesperson said.
As officers amassed on site, Within Our Lifetime — which regularly targets Jewish sites and features antisemitism at its rallies — issued several more urgent calls for reinforcements. The campus protesters exited the campus “without incident,” according to a report in The City. But soon, protesters from the college, Within Our Lifetime followers and dozens of police officers were all commingled on Campus Road, outside the Hillel building, the largest in the CUNY system.
In the clashes, captured on video attributed to FreedomNews.TV, protesters can be heard screaming at the police officers as officers push back the crowd, at times pushing or throwing protesters to the ground. One man is tasered while being handcuffed, while at another point an officer exhorts a person present to, “Get that baby out of here.”
The identities of those arrested and cited by police and whether they are affiliated with Brooklyn College was not immediately clear.
The incident came a day after federal prosecutors announced that they had charged a New York City man who had been arrested at three different protests corresponding to ones organized by Within Our Lifetime with hate crimes after learning that he allegedly described himself as a “Jew hater.”
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