AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Police peacefully arrested student protesters at the University of Southern California on Wednesday, hours after aggressively arresting dozens in the latest clashes between law enforcement and protesters at the University of Texas. Israel-Hamas war on campuses across the country.
A few dozen demonstrators standing in a circle with locked arms were detained one by one in the evening, amid heightened tensions between police and protesters at USC the previous day.
Police officers cordoned off the dwindling group, which had sat in defiance of earlier warnings to disperse or face arrest. Beyond the police line, hundreds of onlookers watched the helicopters overhead. The school campus was closed.
Tuesday, April 23, 2024, Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) Students protest at a camp outside Kresge Auditorium on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The arrests in California were a stark contrast to the chaos that erupted hours earlier at the University of Texas at Austin, as universities quickly turned to law enforcement as they struggled to quell the unrest.
Hundreds of local and state police — including some on horseback and wielding batons — pushed into the protesters, at one point some falling into the street. Authorities arrested 34 people at the behest of the university and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, according to the state Department of Public Safety.
Video shows a photographer covering the demonstration for Fox 7 Austin in a push-pull when an officer pulls him backwards to the ground. The station confirmed the arrest of the photographer. A longtime Texas journalist fell to the ground in the chaos and was seen bleeding before emergency medical workers helped police.
Dan Urquhart, a third-year Texas student who called for police presence and made the arrest, called it an « overreaction. »
« Because of all the arrests, I think there's going to be a lot more (protests), » Urquhart said.
Police left after hours of efforts to control the crowd, and about 300 demonstrators returned to sit on the grass under the school's iconic clock tower and chant.
In a statement Wednesday night, university president Jay Hartzell said: « Our rules are important and will be enforced. Our university will not be occupied.
Just north of USC, students at California State Polytechnic University in Humboldt were locked inside the building for a third day, and the school closed campus for the weekend and made classes virtual.
Harvard University in Massachusetts tried to stay ahead of the protests this week by restricting access to Harvard Yard and requiring permits for tents and tables. Protesters didn't stop Harvard's undergraduate Palestine solidarity group from setting up a camp with 14 tents Wednesday following a rally against the university's suspension.
Students The Israel-Hamas conflict War demands Schools severed financial ties to Israel and withdrawing from the institutions that enable its months-long conflict. Some Jewish students say the protests have become anti-Semitic and have made them afraid to set foot on campus.
Police said 133 protesters were arrested at New York University this week, and more than 40 protesters were arrested Monday at Yale University's campus.
Columbia University was omitted Another clash between students and police earlier Wednesday. University president Minuch Shafiq had reached an agreement to remove a camp by midnight on Tuesday, but the school extended negotiations and said it would continue negotiations with protesters for another 48 hours.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, who visited the campus on Wednesday, called on Shafiq to resign « if he can't sort out this mess. »
« If this is not contained quickly, if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, the National Guard has an appropriate time, » he said.
On Wednesday evening, a Columbia spokeswoman said rumors that the university had threatened to bring in the National Guard were unfounded. « Our focus is to restore order, and if we can get there through dialogue, we will, » said Ben Chang, Columbia's vice president for communications.
Columbia graduate student Omer Lubaton Granot said he wanted to remind people that Hamas still held more than 100 hostages by placing pictures of Israeli hostages near the camp.
« I see all the people behind me advocating for human rights, » he said. « I don't think they would say a word about people their age, kidnapped from their homes or from a music festival in Israel, being held by a terrorist organization. »
Tala Albokaha, a Harvard law student who is Palestinian, said she and other protesters wanted more transparency at the university.
« It is my hope that the Harvard administration will listen to what its students have been asking for all year, which is to withdraw, disclose and drop the charges against the students, » he said.
Police arrested more than 100 protesters when they first tried to dismantle the camp in Colombia last week. The move backfired, serving as an inspiration for other students across the country to set up similar encampments and prompting protesters to regroup in Colombia.
Camp Columbia had about 60 tents Wednesday and appeared quiet. Security was tight around the campus, with identification required and police erecting metal barriers.
Colombia said it had agreed with protest representatives that only students should be in the camp.
A few dozen students rallied on the University of Minnesota campus, a day after nine protesters were arrested when police cleared a camp in front of the library. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, whose daughter was among the protesters arrested in Colombia last week, joined the protest later in the day.
A group of more than 80 professors and assistant professors signed a letter Wednesday calling on the university's president and other administrators to drop any charges and allow future encampments without what they described as police retaliation.
They wrote that they were « appalled that the administration would allow such a flagrant violation of our students' rights to speak out freely against the genocide and ongoing occupation of Palestine. »
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Perry reports from Meredith, New Hampshire. Associated Press reporters who contributed to this report were Joey Cappelletti, Will Weisert, Larry Lage, Steve LeBlanc, Dave Collins, Jim Salter, Haven Daly, Jesse Betain, John Antsak, Julie Walker and Joseph Krause, among others.
