Protesters Clash at UCLA, Columbia     05/01 06:01

   Dueling groups of protesters clashed Wednesday at the University of 
California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using 
sticks to beat one another. 

   LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Dueling groups of protesters clashed Wednesday at the 
University of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, 
kicking and using sticks to beat one another. Hours earlier, police carrying 
riot shields burst into a building at Columbia University that pro-Palestinian 
protesters took over and broke up a demonstration that had paralyzed the school 
while inspiring others.

   After a couple of hours of scuffles between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli 
demonstrators at UCLA, police wearing helmets and face shields formed lines and 
slowly separated the groups. That appeared to quell the violence.

   Police have swept through campuses across the U.S. over the last two weeks 
in response to protests calling on universities to stop doing business with 
Israel or companies that support the war in Gaza. There have been 
confrontations and more than 1,000 arrests. In rarer instances, university 
officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to 
campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies.

   The clashes at UCLA took place around a tent encampment built by 
pro-Palestinian protesters, who erected barricades and plywood for protection 
-- while counter-protesters tried to pull them down. People threw chairs and at 
one point a group piled on a person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating 
them with sticks until others pulled them out of the scrum.

   It was not clear how many people might be injured.

   Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the violence "absolutely abhorrent and 
inexcusable" in a spot on social media platform X and said officers from the 
Los Angeles Police Department were on the scene. Officers from the California 
Highway Patrol also appeared to be there. The university said it had requested 
help.

   Security was tightened Tuesday at the campus after officials said there were 
"physical altercations" between factions of protesters.

   Late that same day, New York City officers entered Columbia's campus after 
the university requested help, according to a statement released by a 
spokesperson. A tent encampment on the school's grounds was cleared, along with 
Hamilton Hall where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a 
second-floor window. Protesters seized the hall at the Ivy League school about 
20 hours earlier.

   "After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been 
occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice," the school 
said. "The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of 
the protesters, not the cause they are championing. We have made it clear that 
the life of campus cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate 
the rules and the law."

   Police spokesman Carlos Nieves said he had no immediate reports of any 
injuries. The arrests occurred after protesters shrugged off an earlier 
ultimatum to abandon the encampment Monday or be suspended and unfolded as 
other universities stepped up efforts to end demonstrations that were inspired 
by Columbia.

   Fabien Lugo, a first-year accounting student who said he was not involved in 
the protests, said he opposed the university's decision to call in police.

   "This is too intense," he said. "It feels like more of an escalation than a 
de-escalation."

   Just blocks away from Columbia, at The City College of New York, 
demonstrators were in a standoff with police outside the public college's main 
gate. Video posted on social media by news reporters on the scene late Tuesday 
showed officers putting some people to the ground and shoving others as they 
cleared people from the street and sidewalks.

   After police arrived, officers lowered a Palestinian flag atop the City 
College flagpole, balled it up and tossed it to the ground before raising an 
American flag.

   Brown University, another member of the Ivy League, reached an agreement 
Tuesday with protesters on its Rhode Island campus. Demonstrators said they 
would close their encampment in exchange for administrators taking a vote to 
consider divestment from Israel in October. The compromise appeared to mark the 
first time a U.S. college has agreed to vote on divestment in the wake of the 
protests.

   Meanwhile, at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, police in riot gear 
closed in on an encampment late Tuesday and arrested about 20 people for 
trespassing, at least one of whom was thrown to the ground. University 
officials had warned earlier in the day that students would face criminal 
charges if they did not disperse.

   First-year student Brayden Lang watched from the sidelines. "I still know 
very little about this conflict," he said. "But the deaths of thousands is 
something I cannot stand for."

   The nationwide campus protests began at Columbia in response to Israel's 
offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on 
Oct. 7. Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 
roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 
34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there.

   As cease-fire negotiations appeared to gain steam, it wasn't clear whether 
those talks would lead to an easing of protests.

   Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as 
antisemitic, while Israel's critics say it uses those allegations to silence 
opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making 
antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of 
whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian 
rights and protesting the war.

   Columbia's police action happened on the 56th anniversary of a similar move 
to quash an occupation of Hamilton Hall by students protesting racism and the 
Vietnam War.

   The police department earlier Tuesday said officers wouldn't enter the 
grounds without the college administration's request or an imminent emergency. 
Now, law enforcement will be there through May 17, the end of the university's 
commencement events.

   In a letter to senior NYPD officials, Columbia President Minouche Shafik 
said the administration made the request that police remove protesters from the 
occupied building and a nearby tent encampment "with the utmost regret."

   Protesters first set up a tent encampment at Columbia almost two weeks ago. 
The school sent in police to clear the tents the following day, arresting more 
than 100 people, only for the students to return.

   Negotiations between the protesters and the college came to a standstill in 
recent days, and the school set a deadline for the activists to abandon the 
tent encampment Monday afternoon or be suspended.

   Instead, protesters defied the ultimatum and took over Hamilton Hall early 
Tuesday, carrying in furniture and metal barricades.

   Ilana Lewkovitch, a self-described "leftist Zionist" student at Columbia, 
said it's been hard to concentrate on school for weeks. Her exams have been 
disrupted with chants of "say it loud, say it clear, we want Zionists out of 
here."

   Lewkovitch, who is Jewish, said she wished the current pro-Palestinian 
protests were more open to people like her who criticize Israel's war policies 
but believe there should be an Israeli state.