… Columbia University administrators called in the New York Police Department (NYPD) on Wednesday evening to violently suppress and shut down a pro-Palestinian student occupation of the campus’ Butler Library. Approximately 78 protesters were arrested just over a year after the police-state crackdown at Columbia last April, when the NYPD swarmed the campus to arrest over 100 students and break up the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”
On Wednesday afternoon, a group of around 100 anti-genocide student protesters took over Butler’s main reading room and renamed it the “Basel Al-Araj Popular University,” after the Palestinian activist and writer killed by Israeli forces in 2017.
The students’ demands include Columbia’s financial divestment from Zionist organizations, an academic boycott of complicit institutions, cops and ICE off campus and amnesty for all university members unfairly targeted and disciplined for pro-Palestinian actions.
Columbia’s Public Safety officers immediately responded and violently barred protesters from leaving unless they showed identification, which created a prolonged standoff…
They weren’t there to stop them from leaving, they were there to make them leave the right way - after being identified. The protesters didn’t like this though since they didn’t want to be held accountable for their actions, which is ironic because they want everyone else to be held accountable for things that weren’t even anything to do with their actions.
How can you create an account with that name and also say you must comply with any authority even when they’re infringing on your rights? There’s no legal requirement to identify themselves (and even then, only to police, not to security) unless they’re suspected of commiting a crime. Being trespassed is not a crime. Trespassing is. They were told they had to leave, and on attempting to leave they were prevented from doing so, so they had not committed a crime and were being prevented from complying with the trespass order.
You can’t accuse someone of trespassing if you prevent them from leaving. No one is required to identify themselves to security.
Trespassing requires you to be notified that you shouldn’t be there. Without notice, there is no trespassing. After giving notice, trespassing only occurs if they remain on the property in spite of being notified they’re not allowed to be there. By preventing them from leaving, you are preventing them from satisfying your requirement for them not to be there, and thus undermining any trespassing charge.
Even if they were trespassing, none of that justifies being assaulted by police officers.