[Source: Reuters]

The occupation of a building at Columbia University by pro-Palestinian student protesters was in its 18th hour when photos and videos dinged across students’ phones: police had parked at least seven jail buses south of the campus.

The backs of New York police officers standing guard outside the gates of the Manhattan campus could be seen through the railings. Police surveillance drones appeared in the dusk sky.

Even as one drone hovered over a two-week-old tent encampment set up on a lawn by students protesting Columbia’s financial ties to Israel’s war in Gaza, Columbia administrators summoned student leaders to a Zoom meeting on Tuesday. That last discussion was unsuccessful.

Within hours, police had arrested dozens of people on burglary and trespassing charges, including at least 30 students, six alumni and two Columbia employees, and cleared out protest encampments that had spawned dozens of similar demonstrations at colleges around the world.

This account of the night police swarmed the Ivy League university campus is based on interviews with student protesters, professors, bystanders and the eyewitness accounts of Reuters journalists.

Hours before police moved in, protesters occupying Hamilton Hall appeared on its second-floor balcony above the barricaded front doors.

Most wore Columbia-logo sweatshirts and black balaclavas. One reclined on the balcony’s outer wall, dangling a leg over, offering peace signs to a crowd of supporters below and a middle finger to student journalists raising a microphone as high as they could for comment.