College protests live: NYPD reveals cop “unintentionally” fired gun while breaching locked office at Columbia

Dean Kahler flung himself to the ground and covered his head when the bullets started flying. The Ohio National Guard had opened fire on unarmed war protesters at Kent State University, and Kahler, a freshman, was among them.

M1 rifle rounds hit the ground all around him. “And then I got hit,” Kahler recalled, more than 50 years later. “It felt like a bee sting.” But it was far worse than that — a bullet had gone through his lung, shattered three vertebrae and damaged his spinal cord. He was paralyzed.

Four Kent State students were killed and Kahler and eight others were injured when National Guard members fired into a crowd on May 4, 1970, following a tense exchange in which troops used tear gas to break up an anti-war demonstration and protesters hurled rocks at the guardsmen. It was a watershed moment in U.S. history — a violent bookend to the turbulent 1960s — that galvanized campus protests nationwide and forced the temporary shutdown of hundreds of colleges and universities.

The University of Tenneesee has defended its decision to call police in to break up ongoing Gaza protests on campus on Thursday night.

The administration released a statement saying demonstrators could not “monopolize university property for an indefinite period of time.”

“We apply laws and policies to everyone equally and without prejudice to preserve the use and enjoyment of university property and protect the safety of members of our community,” University Chancellor Donde Plowman said in a statement. “A group of individuals does not have the right to monopolize university property for an indefinite period of time.”

Nine people were arrested, including seven students and two other individuals.

Police cleared out a pair of Gaza protest encampments on Friday at New York University and the New School.

The NYPD said 56 people were arrested, 13 protesters at NYU and another 43 at the New School.

The New School announced on Friday it would move to remote learning to ensure safety on campus.

Demonstrators at the New School spent the last week sleeping inside tents at a campus building and on sidewalks at NYU. Officials at both schools eventually asked the NYPD to intervene to “disperse the illegal encampments.”

A driver in Portland was caught on video slowly turning down a street blocked off by Portland State University protesters before briefly accelerating toward a crowd of demonstrators.

When protesters swarmed the car, the driver exited and ran away, spraying bear mace as he fled.

A license plate on the car read “We the People.”

Protesters caused heavy damage to the abandoned car.

Heather Heyer, a woman who was protesting against white supremacists at the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in 2017, was killed when a white supremacist drove his car into demonstraters.

Administrators at the University of Wisconsin said they want an ongoing protest encampment torn down before finals begin next week.

They noted in a statement that talks with the protesters have stalled.

Demonstrators reportedly told school officials that ongoing discussions would be “pointless” if the school continued to refuse to disclose its investments.

Police cleared a protest at the school on Wednesday, but protesters returned.

The Columbia Law Review, one of the country’s most prestigious law journals, has called on Columbia Law School to cancel its final exams following the police raid on Tuesday that broke up weeks-long Gaza protests on campus.

The CLR’s Administrative Board Student Editors issued the statement on Wednesday, saying that students should be given passing grades for their “work throughout the semester” rather than their performance on a year-end test.

“The violence we witnessed last night has irrevocably shaken many of us on the Review,” the statement said. “We know this to be the same for a majority of our classmates. Videos have circulated of police clad in riot gear mocking and brutalizing our students.”

“The events of last night left us, and many of our peers, unable to focus and highly emotional during this tumultuous time. This only follows the growing distress that many of us have felt for months as the humanitarian crisis abroad continues to unfold, and as the blatant antisemitism, islamophobia, and racism on campus have escalated.”

Columbia University released a breakdown of the individuals arrested on Tuesday when police raided the occupied Hamilton Hall to disperse Gaza protests on campus.

The university said in a statement that “outsiders” were among those arrested. According to the school’s data, 13 of the protesters were adults who were not affiliated with the university.

“A significant portion of those who broke the law and occupied Hamilton Hall were outsiders,” a Columbia spokesperson said. “While 14 were Columbia undergraduate students, the majority were a mix of adults, including graduate students, two employees, and outsiders unaffiliated with Columbia University.”

The university said that it is still determining what disciplinary action will be taken saying “the occupiers violated various University policies, but more importantly, they broke the law. Actions have consequences.”

Columbia University released a breakdown of the protesters who were arrested during a Tuesday evening NYPD raid on Hamilton Hall, which demonstrators had occupied after defying the university’s 2pm deadline to disperse issued the previous day.

• 13 adults not affiliated with Columbia
• 6 students from other schools
• 23 Columbia students, including 14 undergrads and 9 graduate students
• 2 Columbia employees

The New School in New York, a private university, said it would hold its classes online following a police crackdown on protesters at the campus.

“We have been very tolerant of the students’ right to free speech as long as they did not interfere with the educational mission,” Donna Shalala, the school’s interim president, said in a statement on Friday. “Despite entreaties by the Dean of Students, members of the faculty, and student leaders, the protesters have refused to permit entry, which left the university no choice but to protect the rights of our students to access their residence hall, classrooms, library, and cafeteria.”

The NYPD arrested 44 students at the New School on Friday morning.