WKCR 89.9 - Columbia Occupation, Hind (Hamilton) Hall NYPD Raid (2024)

David González: I could count, at least from my vantage point, a good 20 to 30, maybe 40 to 50 NYPD officers in riot gear. They're now telling other people to also disperse and move out of the way. Of course, if we are instructed to do so, we will comply. But it seems that they are rapidly coming to the entrance of Hamilton Hall here.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Great. Thank you, David. We'll keep posted on the Hamilton Hall situation. Does anyone else have an update for the rest of campus?

Sawyer: Could I jump in, Macy?

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Yes, go ahead, Sawyer.

Sawyer: There's currently NYPD officers that are crowding around the entrances of the West Lawn, and they are now entering the West Lawn, just a few of them, but they are flashing their flashlights into tents, looking into tents, searching for people. As I know, there's a perimeter around the West Lawn, but otherwise there's just a few looking within the West Lawn.

David González: I'm sorry to interrupt you, Sawyer. NYPD is now at Hamilton Hall. They are telling people to clear out of the building. Get out of the way if they are bystanders. There is quite a large number, and I definitely see a couple in higher-up uniforms instructing people to get out of the way. They are now clearing the stairs below Hamilton Hall. We're continuing to be pushed back with a lot of anti-NYPD chants here, as you can probably hear from my headphones. But they are now at Hamilton Hall clearing out bystanders, student press, and anyone else who may be in the way of the Hamilton Hall Thank you, David.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Can you confirm whether NYPD has started trying to move any of the physical barricades, like the picnic tables or anything like that?

David González: No, they have not yet engaged with the physical barricades. They're still currently clearing out anyone else who may be bystander. Sort of protesters now forming part of the human barrier, or barricade, sorry, as well as student press, are all being asked to clear quite a ways away, might I add. We are now fully off of the stairs. that are in front of Hamilton Hall to the southern entrance and are being asked to be pushed back even further. NYPD is now pushing us almost at the entrance of Hartley. And might I note, there are quite a lot of student onlookers here being asked to also clear out of Hartley. At this point, I'm basically past the entrance of Hartley, and I think anyone who cannot enter Hartley— I see students rapidly streaming in, but anyone who cannot enter Hartley Hall will probably be pushed back the other direction.

Ian Pumphrey: David, I'm sorry, I got to interrupt. I got to interrupt. They're entering the encampment now. I know, sorry, I reported on this before, but me and McKenna are atop the ledge right now. We see a little bit, we have a little bit of height on the West Lawn, and yeah, they're searching tents right now, it seems. There is about a crowd of, I'd say, 30 or 40 police officers with, again, batons and zip ties right outside the Gaza Solidarity encampment right now. I'm not sure if they're going to enter, but it seems like they're just watching. From the other end of the Gaza Solidarity encampment on the West Lawn, they are They seem to be searching tents right now, searching for people. They have their flashlights on, by the way. That's all I want to say right there. Again, no email from Shafiq by any means. Thank you.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Yes, thank you, Ian. I just wanted to ask, do we have a field reporter over on Amsterdam? We have word that arrests are happening on Amsterdam. If we could get a field reporter over there. Thank you. If someone, yeah, if someone outside of the campus gates could go over to Amsterdam, that would be greatly appreciated. Casey, do you have any updates?

Ben Erdman: All right.

Sarah Barlin: If Casey's not going to go on, I'll go first.

Casey Lamb: I do, I do, but it's all right. Sarah, go first.

Sarah Barlin: Thank you, Casey. Yeah, I'm sorry. I just wanted to report a little bit on Hamilton Hall right now. So it seems like the SRG officers have dispersed any entire crowd. So it's kind of hard to explain this, but now there is no circumference of spectators right now by Hamilton Hall. They have all been dispersed by NYPD officers, so this kind of affects our vantage point.

David González: If I could add, inside of this crowd here, they're pushing us past the gazebo. The entire crowd is being asked to move as far away from Hamilton Hall as possible. I frankly don't know where we're going to go at this point. We're sort of trapped on the southern end of this little freshman yard here. We are past the gazebo. No spectators are being allowed past the gazebo. And NYPD are now forming some sort of perimeter.

Georgia: David, if I can interject here, I just saw a little detail that I think listeners would appreciate to know. NYPD are putting hands on individuals who are getting in their way. Just want to keep an eye on that as they continue to push us forward, or continue to push us backwards, excuse me.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you all for your fantastic reporting. Do we have any other updates on the field right now? Anything going on at Hamilton that we can report on?

Sarah Barlin: Sort of, Macy. Yes, this is Sarah again. So I am— I have a camera with me, and I was trying to take pictures, but it's virtually impossible now because there are NYPD officers stationed absolutely everywhere on lower campus. That includes East Lawn and West Lawn and also the— sorry, entrance of Hamilton Hall. And so this means that it is pretty much impossible for us right now to go any more south than the sundial. For those of you who are listening, I would recommend looking up a map of the campus because it's a little bit too time-constrained right now to kind of explain the map. But yes, it's getting really hard for us to report with this vantage.

David González: Yeah, so sorry to interject, Sarah. We're being moved here in Hamilton, or near Hamilton, even further south. We're being told to continue to clear out and move out, at least as spectators. So the NYPD is making quite a large perimeter around Hamilton Hall, it seems. We are now pushed fully, almost to the entrance of Wallach. Most of us are crowded around John Jay at this point. If they push us any further, I'm not really sure where we're expected to go, since, of course, these shelter-in-place orders may not necessarily be followed through by campus— by public safety officials inside of the dorms.

Georgia: And if I may, just for a second, also add that the student barricade that was formed, you know, human barricade that was formed outside of Hamilton Hall, is still there. They did not move. They are currently standing arm in arm along the facade of Hamilton waving a Palestinian flag, and now are being moved back. Okay.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Once again, thank you for your updates, field team. We do— yeah, go ahead, McKenna.

Helyeh Doutaghi: Can I jump in? Thank you. I just wanted to note, as Ian and I are standing at one of these pillars in front of Butler Library, we have a really good vantage point of both of the lawns. As Sarah was alluding to earlier, They have NYPD officers stationed at pretty much every entrance, every corner of every lawn on lower campus right now. This is incredibly contrasting to the initial arrest that we saw on April 18th, when there were thousands and thousands of Columbia students witnessing the arrest taking place. Now it seems that the number of NYPD officers far, far outnumbers the number of protesters that we have here on campus today. Hi, my name is Helyeh Doutaghi. And I have Ian here to add something as well.

Ian Pumphrey: One thing also that's, I think, unprecedented with this is also there is no email before the arrest. I know we had during the arrest last time a Shafiq email that was sent out, but as this is going on, there's been a moment of silence.

David González: I'm so sorry to interrupt you, Ian.

Ian Pumphrey: Ted, take it.

David González: I'm so sorry to interrupt you, Ian. Everyone here on the sort of lawn in front of Hamilton, in front of John Jay, is being instructed now by NYPD to, quote, get inside or get out of the vicinity. We're not really sure where to go at this point. Again, a lot of people are crowding into John Jay. Some people I see kind of running off to the side, but I think— I'm not sure where we will go at this point. Very few people spectating at this point. Everyone either inside of a building or rapidly trying to clear the area.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Yeah, it's important to note also that we have sightings of people being turned away from buildings they do not live in. There are a lot of buildings on Columbia's campus that are locked. So to reiterate what David said, many people do not know where to go, and they are being instructed by NYPD to go inside or face disciplinary action. So I just needed to mention that. Does anyone else have anything to report on? Georgia?

Sarah Barlin: Yes, Macy. Oh, sorry. Georgia, go ahead.

Georgia: We just— an NYPD officer just told David and I to either go into the premises if we lived there or leave the premises. And we asked, well, where do we go? And he just said, oh, I don't know, and then turned away. So we actually don't know where to go. What's that, Macy? They're locking the gate. And now they're locking the gate.

Speaker 10: Oh, this is—

Georgia: okay, they're locking the gates between Butler and John Jay. This is basically the only exit we would have out at this point if we were not going—

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Okay, thank you for that update.

Georgia: Where do we go? Sorry, guys, I'm going to mute myself.

Speaker 10: You can go ahead.

Sarah Barlin: Okay, Georgia, please stay safe. And David, yeah, we're going to definitely keep an eye out to make sure that David and Georgia are safe. That's our first priority here at WKCR, is making sure that all of our correspondents are safe.

David González: I'm so sorry to interrupt you again, Sarah. I do want to point out that NYPD is now barricading John Jay residents inside of John Jay. While also telling us to get out of the vicinity or go inside. Frankly, I'm not sure how we're supposed to comply with these directions, since we can't go inside and we cannot exit, as the gate is now sort of closed off to our left. I think they might just keep us here on the southern end of this little lawn outside of Hamilton— outside of Hamilton Hall.

Sarah Barlin: OK, I'm going to— Thank you. Sorry, sorry, Macy, I don't want to interrupt you.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Yeah, sorry, we have a bit of an urgency.

Casey Lamb: There is a large group of NYPD entering the lawns from the south entrance there with flashlights. And they are going towards the tents. It is quite a large group in addition to the lining, and I believe they're starting to look intense now. I don't know if that's— if you guys could hear that well.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: We have a bit of an urgent update. I'm going to have to send it over to Ben. Ben, can you hear me? Okay. I will just phrase what Ben said.

David González: I'm so sorry to interrupt. We're now being escorted off of the premises, both press, spectators, anyone else. Frankly, no one here is left to document whatever might go down at Hamilton Hall. As we are now being told to leave the premises. No one is outside. Everyone is barricaded inside of their dorms here on the lawn outside of Hamilton Hall. We're now being escorted off the premises by NYPD. I'm not sure where they're going to put us, but I don't think we have any reporters anymore that are outside of Hamilton Hall.

Georgia: Yeah, I just want to reiterate that the amount of people I see around me right now with student press on their backs or on stickers of whatever kind— someone in the crowd here was saying, who is going to document this? If they're not going to let us stay. And I think I just want to leave listeners with that.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: I really need a breaking update from Ben. We have to— he is saying that NYPD is on a lift going through the windows of Hamilton on 115th and Amsterdam. So we just need to reiterate that, that once again there is a focus on campus and the pandemonium on campus, but also a focus on, obviously, Hamilton Hall, which has been occupied. So it is believed that NYPD is going through the windows of Hamilton. We will hopefully continue to get more updates. Do I have anyone on the field that can again speak to where NYPD is escorting students? All right, give me just a moment. McKenna, can you hear me?

Speaker 10: All right.

David González: I'm so sorry to interrupt again. I had just asked a couple of officials, including I think school officials as well as NYPD officials, who exactly will document this? And they said, or rather, will anyone be here to document this? And they simply said, not right now. I would like to leave listeners with that.

Georgia: Yeah, we're currently being asked to exit campus at 114th. Between John Jay and Butler.

Casey Lamb: In that vein, Georgia, a team of us, Ian McKenna and Leon, as well as me, Casey, are being asked to move away from the West Lawn. We were told by a number of New York Police Department officials to move away from the lawn, and we are now moving towards Pulitzer Hall.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Okay, Ian, do you have anything additional to add?

Ian Pumphrey: Yeah, we were asked—

David González: Can I just—

Helyeh Doutaghi: go, Ian.

Ian Pumphrey: Yeah, we were asked to move from our ledge from Butler. I asked which building, because if you don't live in the building, they're not letting you into the building. You can't swipe in. They said, they asked us, are you even students? Me and McKenna showed us our WKCR student press, and they said, you need to get off right now. I'm not telling you again. We left, we went away, and then they did, they said, I asked one more time, which building should I go into? And they said, we're not sure. So that's all I've heard from NYPD.

Ben Erdman: Okay.

Speaker 10: Thank you.

David González: I just want to report here that we are now exited from— we've exited and are now on 114. We're being told to continue to exit westward and being sort of escorted off the premises. I just want to report a massive NYPD presence here on 114th. I see at least one bus with a lot of lights here, maybe 2. I can't tell from this vantage point. After all, the NYPD is keeping us quite far away from anything going on. And I can't tell how many officers from here. If anyone on the western side of 114th has a better vantage point, maybe they can speak to that. But I definitely see—

Sarah Barlin: David, okay, it's my turn to interrupt now, David. David, I'm sorry. There are— I don't know what division of police officers this is, but they have a ton of— I don't know. Industrial tools, emergency services. They have sledgehammers. Oh, they are now disrupting the barricade. This is the admissions— Oh my God, they are ripping— they're pulling students from the entrance of the admissions office here at Hamilton Hall.

Speaker 10: Yeah, okay.

Sarah Barlin: I'm with Sawyer, so we're both throwing students. That's my report for now.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Does anyone look hurt? Can you tell if students are hurt?

Helyeh Doutaghi: No.

Sarah Barlin: Students, I'm sorry.

Speaker 10: They're going to go through that gate.

Sarah Barlin: I'm sorry. Okay, so I'm going to keep you guys muted for now.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Please text your updates just because the audio is a little bit hard to hear since it's so loud. But we are hearing that students are being pushed. I'm going to send it over to Ali for an update on Hamilton Hall.

Speaker 10: Thanks, Macy.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: Sorry about that. Again, we'll text updates as we have them. But we have received video evidence of a police contraption currently on 116th and Amsterdam that has a ladder ramp-looking thing that police are using to square up right to the 3rd floor of Hamilton. It is believed that they will start entering there. We have a source stationed at the corner of 116th and Amsterdam sending video evidence. I will continue to report.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: And once again, we did have reports that there were sledgehammers at the front doors of Hamilton Hall. So it is not just the windows that they are entering through. They are also trying to disband the barricades at Hamilton Hall. Georgia, do you have an update? I see you're right by—

Georgia: I'm sorry, this was up from before. David and I are just on 114th listening to what is going on.

Casey Lamb: We can't move.

Georgia: We're basically on the corner of 114th and 115th.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: OK, Sawyer.

Georgia: It's really unclear.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Sawyer, I see you're—

Georgia: I'm just going to let it go over to people who are on the scene right now.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Yeah, Sawyer, I see you're close by. Can you give us an update, if possible?

Sawyer: Yeah, they just— the SWAT, or excuse me, the NYPD team that were at the Hall of Rock entrance to Hamilton Hall has just entered through the doors. We can't tell where they're going now, but there's a bit of a commotion, and they have entered the doors.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: OK. Just to confirm that police have entered the front doors of Hamilton Hall. Once again, they had sledgehammers, riot gear. So that is very important. And I'm going to hand it over to Teddy really quick.

Teddy Weich: I was able to receive video from someone who has a vantage point from Hartley looking onto Hamilton. SWAT has completely cleared out all protesters from the front of Hamilton. I want to repeat, all protesters have been cleared from the front by SWAT quite swiftly, and they are now breaking into the front. As well as going in from the windows, as we reported before. They are completely flooding the building from all sides.

Georgia: Yep.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you, Teddy, for that. I just want to ask, McKenna, do you have a good vantage point? Can you report anything for right now?

Georgia: Yeah.

Helyeh Doutaghi: Thank you, Macy. I'm here with Leon, Casey, and Ian right now. And we— I can report that the SRG unit has now left the West Lawn encampment. My assumption—

Georgia: I don't—

Helyeh Doutaghi: I don't think they made a single arrest on the West Lawn.

Speaker 10: I don't, I don't think—

Helyeh Doutaghi: sorry, Sarah, do you need to go?

Speaker 10: Yes, I'm sorry.

Sarah Barlin: They've started tear gassing is what we've heard.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Okay, once again to reiterate, we have heard that they've started tear gassing. We'll try to get further confirmation on that. Sarah, can you confirm if they're tear gassing anyone or is it just inside Hamilton Hall?

Sarah Barlin: I'm not quite sure. I'm trying to get a vantage point.

Speaker 10: Come here, come here.

Sarah Barlin: Oh, thank you, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am. I can't see right now. I don't see anything. So I would think inside Hamilton Hall. Also, for those of you in the studio, our website has crashed. I don't think anybody can join our stream right now. I believe our website has crashed.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Please, someone sort of— Okay, so we're receiving updates that we're having a bit of trouble with our stream. Teddy, who is here in the studio, is going to try to start a livestream on Instagram on WKCR On Campus. So you can go to that account. We should have that up shortly. Of course, keep trying the stream. FM should not be having any issues right now. Georgia— or Alec, I'm going to cut to you for a second.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: Yeah, thanks. I want to say there is a direct link to download WKCR's livestream directly onto your device. I believe if we haven't publicized that already, we will soon. And so just keep a lookout for that. It'll help keep traffic off our website if you're tuning in. And as always, FM radio is the best way to listen to WKCR.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Okay, thank you for that. Georgia, Georgia, can I go to you? Georgia, can you hear me? Georgia, Georgia, can you hear me? All right. Can I get anyone on the field right now, Sawyer or Georgia?

Georgia: David and I are still outside of campus at 114th and Amsterdam. So no update from us. We're unsure of where to move. We don't want to move further away in case we miss anything. Actually, what I can see right now is that more NYPD are crawling. There's a lot of NYPD crawling into Hamilton on this ladder contraption. This is just the viewpoint we're seeing from 114th and Amsterdam. There's like 10 of them on the ladder right now and more awaiting. That's what I can see right now.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you, Georgia. Sawyer, I'm going to hand it over to you. You said there was an arrest you could see.

Sawyer: Yes. One arrested individual come out of Hamilton Hall. Again, I'm still trying to get a vantage point because NYPD has blocked all of the access to Hamilton Hall. However, we do— I'm seeing actually another. So they are taking arrested individuals from Hamilton Hall, and it seems like they are going towards the 114th—

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you, Sawyer. So I'm getting reports from Teddy now that there may be an unconscious student in front of Hamilton. Do you have any further confirmation of that, Teddy?

Teddy Weich: Yeah, I have a view of video from someone in Harley looking down onto Hamilton. And yes, there's an unconscious student on the ground. They have removed most of the debris and furniture on the side. There's an unconscious student on their side on the ground in front of Hamilton.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you, Teddy, for that. So, once again, we don't know what caused that necessarily. It could have been the police, but we can't confirm right now. We have also heard that there is tear gas, based on what our reporters can smell. It's unclear if that is just inside Hamilton Hall. Or if that is outside as well. McKenna, do you have a vantage point?

Helyeh Doutaghi: Thank you, Macy. I don't have a vantage point of Hamilton Hall right now. I'm currently standing with a bunch of other student reporters, as well as some administrators from the journalism school outside of Pulitzer Hall. We, as Ian mentioned, we were told several, several times by NYPD officers to enter a building if we were students. However, there are no buildings for us to enter at all. I think we may have access as student press into Pulitzer, but I cannot confirm that entirely. But we can see some NYPD officers moving up the middle from Butler north on campus. But right now it's incredibly difficult to see. Our access and our mobility is incredibly limited right now.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Great. Thank you. Once again, I need to state that we do have a livestream going of our coverage on WKCR_OnCampus. Once again, that is WKCR_OnCampus, and that is because we are having difficulties with our online stream. I just wanted to pass it over to Sarah now.

Sarah Barlin: There are a—

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Unfortunately, we can't hear you. If you could maybe—

Sarah Barlin: Can you hear me?

Speaker 10: Yeah, I can hear you now.

Sarah Barlin: Okay, I'm sorry, I was moving. There are a lot, a lot of SRG officers right now reporting to Hamilton Hall. I believe most of the SRG officers that were formerly circumferencing West Lawn have now reported to the front of Hamilton Hall. Again, it's hard to say because the vantage points here are not great. Yes, as Teddy's saying, in front of Hamilton. There also is just a new wave that we did not previously see. I also received a tip from a source who is on 114th right now that there are more correction buses pulling up. That's my update. Thank you, Macy.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Yes, and we now have confirmation that there is a fire alarm going off in Hamilton Hall. We are not sure of the cause of that. But yeah, we're also getting pictures of the ladder that police are climbing up to get into the windows of Hamilton. Does anyone else have an update on the ground? Ian, Georgia?

Ian Pumphrey: Yeah, yeah, I'll go real quick, real quick update. Anyone who wants to butt in, they obviously can. I just want to say lots of NYPD surrounding the West Lawn. They already went through and pretty much cleared it. As you kind of noticed, we could not see or confirm any arrests being made. As I noted before police even came on campus, there was virtually no one in the encampment at all. In fact, I think most were stationed either at the Hartley campsite there or at Hamilton Hall. So I see now that there's just a lot of police officers guarding the West Lawn as it stands. Thank you.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Sawyer, I'm going to turn to you if you have any updates. All right.

Sawyer: Sorry. Can you hear me now?

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Yes, I can hear you.

Sawyer: Okay. There are a number of arrested individuals now coming down what appears to be from Hamilton to around Butler near the John Jay gates. This is an influx. There were about 3 or 4 that I saw previously, and now there seems to be at least 6 at a time. They are just taking them in hordes at this point. But otherwise, I think everything is up to date here.

Sarah Barlin: Great.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you. Georgia, I don't know if you have a vantage point. Can you attest to if there are still bystanders, if anyone that is not involved with the protest has Has gotten in the way or been hurt?

Georgia: I'm still outside campus. So far, I can't see any escalation that's taken place out here, specifically where I am at 114th and Broadway. From what I can see— oh, there are people leaving campus. Are they—

David González: are they—

Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah Barlin: Okay, okay.

Georgia: So, David has a vantage point from his camera. People are being— are exiting campus in the sort of zip-tie handcuffs here. We're seeing a few of them here. I can recognize these people from the barricade. These are individuals who were in front, part of the human barricade outside of Hamilton Hall. They have been escorted here by the police, it seems, outside of campus. I'm unsure why they've just brought them to the end of the barricade here at the street. I'm a little bit confused, but they might be being invited to exit. I'm unsure, but I'll update you.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you so much. I'm gonna send it over to Sarah. If you have an update, Sarah.

Sarah Barlin: Hi, you see, I'm trying to get any noise. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We charge you with assault. I'm sorry, I had to get out of the noise. Yeah, they are arresting a lot of students. I know that previously we were pretty much unsure of how many students were in Hamilton Hall. I believe now we've maybe seen 20 arrests. I would also like to note that I did see one student being dragged. The student did look very limp. I'm not sure if that was a form of resistance or if that was the student who had passed out But yeah, the student looked limp. That's all I wanted to note. But that's also speculation that that could have been the student with the medical emergency. All right, Macy, back to you. Thank you so much.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you. I just wanted to reiterate too that we now have a livestream on our account, WKCR_OnCampus, on Instagram. If the stream online is not working for you, please tune into our livestream, WKCR_OnCampus, to continue our coverage or tune in on an FM signal. I wanted to ask, McKenna, do you have any updates for us?

Helyeh Doutaghi: So sorry about— so, so sorry about the delay there. I have Ian here with me also to report. I'm going to let Ian go first.

Ian Pumphrey: Just real quick, from our view, we are from Pulitzer Hall. All we can see is flashing lights and lots and lots of noise, screams. What else do you hear, McKenna?

Helyeh Doutaghi: I'm hearing a ton of chants from the outside protesters, I'm assuming. We can also hear the sound before, just a few minutes prior, We heard a lot of banging metal, and I'm assuming that's from the metal furniture that they had barricading them inside Hamilton Hall. I also want to report that we received a few anonymous videos from a resident of Hartley Hall kind of showing some of the brutal images— and brutal is the only way I can describe what we saw— images of students being pinned and arrested. We have videos of them. I can send them to you guys for more confirmation, but students being arrested and pinned on the ground, which is a much more brutal tactic, I think, than when we saw last Thursday on the 8th.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Great. Thank you. I'm going to pass it over to Sawyer now.

Sawyer: Yeah, I just want to note, because we've been keeping track of the spectatorship that has been occurring throughout these past 2 weeks, to me, as a reporter that has been here during all the major escalations that have occurred in the past 2 weeks, As well as everyone else on the field, I'm sure this is very eerie, as there are very few, I guess, spectators there. There is a small chant that is occurring on the outside of Hamilton on College Walk, but otherwise there just is press, student press. But yeah, there's not a ton of spectatorship due to the lockdown on campus.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you. I appreciate that update. Georgia, I noticed you seem to be very close to an officer. Do you have an update by chance, if you can?

Sawyer: Yeah.

Georgia: If anyone has any more pressing updates, you're welcome to interrupt me. I just wanted to mention I was talking a little bit about these folks that I remember seeing at the barricade outside of Hamilton Hall being led here by NYPD in front of the barricade here at the intersection of 114th and Broadway. From what I see now, they are continuing to hold hands and link arms here, but they have decided to sit. I believe this is Something they've decided to do together, sit down in the street here in front of the barricade. So I'm going to try and get a sense for what sort of circumstances led up to them doing this and perhaps why they want to do this. I'm also seeing some men in suits entering the barricades now, supposedly walking towards the John Jay gates. So that's something we're going to look closer to. I can see this very vaguely through the window, but it does appear that a lot more Police are entering the John Jay Gates. So just something to pin if someone can. Okay. Yeah. David has a vantage point here that he can see lots and lots of NYPD entering campus there at John Jay Gates.

David González: Okay.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: I'm just going to jump on really quick. This is a very important piece of information to know. From our estimates, there were anywhere between 20 and 50 protesters that were inside Hamilton Hall. We still don't have a confirmation number on that, but Just to scale for our listeners, the difference between the amount of protesters in Hamilton Hall and the police response we are seeing tonight. This is the most police response we have ever seen on campus. It is nowhere near what we saw during the first arrests. And it appears that people are being caught up in this that are not necessarily protesters. So once again, we'll keep our eyes on that. We have reporters still in the field, but I'll keep you all posted. It just was important to know again that there were between 20 and 50 protesters inside Hamilton Hall, which is completely disproportionate to the police response we are seeing tonight. Does anyone on the field have an update?

Casey Lamb: I can. I have a quick update.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Go ahead, please.

Speaker 13: If it's warranted.

Casey Lamb: It's not about Hamilton Hall, but I did want to note it's now been 20 minutes, or at least, since the New York Police Department was on the West Lawn encampment and cleared it of people, I believe. And we still see, I believe, almost every single tent up here on the West Lawn. All the tents are up. I believe there are no people, and New York Police Department is still very much surrounding the West Lawn. But I did want to note that all the tents are still up, and the lawn seems almost untouched, which is a diversion from what we saw on Thursday. I believe we saw tents going down almost immediately after protesters were arrested.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Great. Thank you. I'm going to send it over to Ali in the studio with an urgent update.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: Thank you, Macy. You might have heard us say that we received no presidential email or something like that before. It has officially come in. It is not something that is available currently. Like, the website has just too much traffic, so I can't even view it from my browser. This is from a screenshot from a university administrator. So the headline is Campus Update for April 30th, 2024, 9:26 p.m. Eastern Time.

David González: Thank you.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: From a university spokesman: A little after 9:00 p.m. this evening, the NYPD arrived on campus at the university's request. This decision was made to restore safety and order to our community. We regret that protesters have chosen to escalate the situation through their actions. After the university learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice. Columbia Public Safety personnel were forced out of the building, and a member of our facilities team was threatened. We will not risk the safety of our community or the potential for further escalation. The leadership team, including the Board of Trustees, met throughout the night and into the early morning, consulting with security experts and law enforcement to determine the best plan to protect our students and the entire Columbia community. We made the decision early in the morning that this was a law enforcement matter and that the NYPD were best positioned to determine and execute an appropriate response. We believe that the group that broke into and occupied the building is led by individuals who are not affiliated with the university. Sadly, this dangerous decision followed more than a week of what had been productive discussions with representatives of the West Lawn encampment. We severely curtailed the number of people on Morningside campus starting Tuesday Over the course of the day, we updated our community on access to campus buildings and will continue to do so through the next few days. 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. Early Tuesday, protesters chose to escalate to an alarming and untenable situation. Including by vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows, blockading entrances, and forcing our facilities and public safety workers out. And we are responding appropriately, as we have long made clear we would. The safety of our community, especially our students, remains our top priority. And before we pass it over to the field again, I— in fact, unless someone has breaking news, I can do this analysis in a little bit. 3 things stand out. First is that this language is verbatim lifted from Columbia's press briefing earlier of what—

Speaker 14: The building was closed at the time the students entered. An individual hid in the building until after it was closed and let the other individuals in. There were 2 security guards inside. We were able to secure their release. We believe that while the group who broke into the building includes students, it is led by individuals who are not affiliated with the university. The individuals who have occupied Hamilton Hall have vandalized university property and are trespassing. In addition, we have had a continuing encampment on the West Lawn of the Morningside campus since Friday, April 19th. Last night, an additional encampment appeared on the math lawn. After more than a week of discussions with representatives of the group engaged in the West Lawn encampment, we reached an impasse on Sunday, April 28th. The group was informed that they are not permitted to occupy spaces on campus, are in violation of the university's rules and policies, and must disperse. All university students in the West Lawn encampment were informed Monday morning that they would be suspended if they did not disperse by 2:00 PM Monday, and that participation in other campus encampments was prohibited. At this time, all participants in the encampments are suspended. Not authorized to be on university property and are trespassing. The takeover of Hamilton Hall and the continued encampments raise serious safety concerns for the individuals involved and the entire community. The actions of these individuals are unfortunately escalating. These activities have become a magnet for protesters outside our gates, which creates significant risk to our campus and disrupts the ability of the university. to continue normal operations. The events on campus last night have left us no choice. With the support of the university's trustees, I have determined that the building occupation, the encampments, and related disruptions pose a clear and present danger to persons, property, and the substantial functioning of the university, and require the use of emergency authority to protect persons and property. With the utmost regret, we request the NYPD's help to clear all individuals from Hamilton Hall and all campus encampments. As part of this process, we understand that the NYPD plans to use its LRAD technology to inform participants in the encampments that they must disperse. In light of the activities that occurred after the events of April 17th to 18th, we further request that you retain a presence on campus through at least May 17th, 2024 to maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished. We trust that you will take care and caution when removing any individual from our campus. The safety and security of our community is our highest priority. And I will not go through the rest because it's all about the university's commitment to freedom of expression and, you know, safety and security of the community. And I think the most important place to leave off here is the fact that President Minouche Shafik has called for the NYPD to maintain a presence on campus until May 17th, 2024, 2 days after university commencement. That is unprecedented. And frankly, I have no words.

Sarah Barlin: It is.

Ben Erdman: And we just received that email at 9:53. It just came to the student body. Once again, so much later than when NYPD entered campus. I'm going to send it over to Sarah. Sarah, if you're okay, I know it's hard out there, but if you I don't know if you can give us an update.

Sarah Barlin: Yeah, thank you, Macey. I just wanted to report that there are NYPD officers clearing the Hamilton Hall building. They're shining flashlights into each room, and they're cutting the banners down.

Georgia: Sorry, hearing that news about the police on campus was difficult to hear, especially—

Sarah Barlin: Yeah.

Ben Erdman: Looks forward to having police on campus until I graduate in May.

Speaker 15: That's all.

Georgia: Yep.

Ben Erdman: So once again, that was until May 17th, which is well past the current graduation date, that after tonight, NYPD will be allowed to have permanent presence on Columbia's campus for the rest of the year. Thankfully, we have some members of our news team back in the room here, and everyone is safe as far as we know. Does anyone on the field have any updates? Georgia, can I send it to you if you have a second?

Speaker 10: Yeah, thank you, Benji.

Georgia: One, the only update we have here is that the bus that I reported was— that was going south on Amsterdam actually had to back up, and now it's going very slowly north, being sort of escorted by the police. I also just wanted to second Samira in that segment about hearing that message.

Ben Erdman: Thank you, Georgia. I just wanted to report on some pictures that we got from our field reporter, David González, that picture of some very violent arrests happening outside of campus with protesters, or actually it could be passersby. We have no confirmation, because again, it was pretty chaotic. But being—

Speaker 10: I think it was protesters. It was the same protesters that were lying on the ground sort of in the way of the buses. But that was the picture of them, the NYPD sort of dragging them away from the scene to clear the way for the buses. He's now backing northbound up Amsterdam.

Ben Erdman: Thank you. I appreciate that, David. And once again, we still have field reporters out there bringing you live updates. You are listening to WKCR-FM New York and WKCR-HD. That is 89.9 on your dial and wkcr.org if you're tuning in online. I'm going to pass it over to Ali, but— or actually, Ian first, if you have an update from campus. Go ahead.

Ian Pumphrey: Real quick. Yeah, we are about 15 minutes in from, I think, whenever we reported. Or maybe 40 minutes into 1 hour, we reported police coming onto campus, and we still have each corner pretty much, I guess, shoulder to shoulder with police officers around the east and west sides.

Speaker 10: No, stream's up right now.

Ian Pumphrey: It stretches so long I can't really look up here. And I think the attentions of Sarah and Georgia are ringing in my brain right now as I see this spectacle here right now.

Sawyer: Thank you.

Ben Erdman: Thank you, Ian. I appreciate it.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: And just to clarify, does anyone else I see, Sawyer, you have a view.

Ben Erdman: Do you want to make an update?

Sawyer: Yeah, they are currently just standing shoulder to shoulder, as Ian said, around the perimeter of the lawn. We previously saw them looking within the lawn, flashing their flashlights into tents and looking in tents. However, it doesn't seem like there's an NYPD presence on the lawn, but I will update. Oh, actually, an update. The entrances to the lawns have been opened seemingly.

Ben Erdman: Thank you so much for that update, Samir. Once again, anyone can feel free to interrupt me at any time with urgent updates.

Georgia: We—

Ben Erdman: I just wanted to update too, because we did have word that police were entering through the windows of Hamilton Hall from the Amsterdam and 116th side of Hamilton Hall. And we have received word that lights are on on the top floor of Hamilton Hall.

Casey Lamb: Okay.

Ben Erdman: We are unsure if all of the protesters from inside of Hamilton have been vacated from the building, but we will try to keep you posted because once again, we believe that police have entered and swept all of the floors of Hamilton Hall. And once again, to reiterate, the police had this kind of truck essentially with a ramp. The ramp was set up. I'm sorry, can you repeat that? at one of the windows in Hamilton. It was parked on the street and the ramp was leading up to one of the windows, and we saw police run up the ramp and into the windows of Hamilton Hall. Okay, apparently we're getting—

Casey Lamb: I have an update.

Speaker 10: Go ahead, please.

Casey Lamb: If you have a moment. Yes. So I'm here outside Pulitzer Hall with a number of faculty and staff from the journalism school, which we have seen for the past maybe half an hour New York Police Department has been facilitating getting students from the— student journalists from the journalism school back to Pulitzer safely. But I'm not sure how high ranking, but at least a level up from the lowest level that seems to be here of New York Police Department went up to one of the faculty members at the journalism school and asked, which ways can we exit campus? And this is a person who was wearing press. The police come up to him and ask, which ways can we exit campus? And then they ask if they can exit through Pulitzer, which is not a way that you can exit campus to Broadway or to 114th Street. So the professor at the journalism school then directed them to the large gates at Broadway and Amsterdam, as well as the Carmen gates through which they entered. I just thought that was an Noteworthy interaction, because it seems at least some members of the New York Police Department do not have full— actually, I am now seeing a large move-out of New York Police Department law officials who are spreading out and fanning out.

Ben Erdman: Okay.

Casey Lamb: They are no longer shoulder to shoulder in front of the West Lawn. They are largely moving towards the Carmen Gate. I think these may be related interactions, as one of the officers did ask which way to get off campus. So they may be decreasing their presence. of New York Police Department and law enforcement on campus. However, I can still note that there is quite a large presence of New York Police Department on campus.

Ben Erdman: Thank you, Casey.

Casey Lamb: That's all we have for now, but I'm sure it will develop.

Ben Erdman: Casey, do you have confirmation by any chance if anyone on the West Lawn was arrested?

Casey Lamb: I don't believe— there was quite a bit of pandemonium and chaos at those moments. I did not see anything myself. Nor do I believe any of my colleagues who were observing the West Lawn, Leon, McKenna, and Ian, noticed anything in particular. But we do believe that the West Lawn is entirely empty, bar the tents and whatever other personal belongings may be on the lawn— signs, food, and whatnot. But it seems to be as though it is a lawn full of tents, empty tents.

Ben Erdman: Thank you, Casey.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: I'm going to send it over to Teddy in the studio.

Speaker 15: Thank you so much, Macy. And quick shout-out to all the strength that is being displayed by our reporting team. I just want to say that right now, on Hamilton right now, all of the debris that was used to barricade Hamilton Hall has been moved to the steps between Lowe. It is a huge pile of tables, chairs, and everything that was being used to blockade the building is now on Hamilton steps, as I would say at least 100 SWAT team members or riot police are stationed outside of Hamilton at the moment.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you.

Ben Erdman: And I just wanted to ask our field team, I don't know, maybe McKenna, if you can answer this. Can you see if there are still arrests being done on Columbia's campus, or does it appear to kind of have settled down a little bit?

Sawyer: Macy, I can jump in here.

Ben Erdman: Thank you.

Sawyer: I'm near the sundial, so I might not be able to see everything, but I think Casey's assessment is correct. There doesn't seem to be anyone on the West Lawn, though previously I don't think Like there were for those past couple hours, many people. However, I'm looking now at Hamilton, and it hasn't appeared to have been particularly busy. There seems to be actually a couple of NYPD officers, if not at least 10, are coming out of Hamilton now. But just to reiterate your point, I think the arrests have for the most part stopped on King Street.

Ben Erdman: Thank you. Thank you for that update. Just a few things to mention in the studio. And once again, if anyone has breaking news, please feel free to interrupt. But I just wanted to mention again that the 2 emails that were received by the student body, one was at 8:18 and was a shelter-in-place, though it did have no advice for where to go if you were denied entry into buildings, which we did see happen while the police were infiltrating Columbia. The second was from Public Affairs at 9:55.

Sarah Barlin: Thank you.

Ben Erdman: And attached there was a letter from President Shafiq to the NYPD. But once again, we have received no direct correspondence from the president. Ali, go ahead.

Speaker 14: That is correct, Macy. And in fact, the most appalling— well, not the most appalling, that is a high bar tonight, but an incredibly appalling thing is that there have been absolutely no direct communications with the student body about these decisions. requesting coverage by the— the letter, excuse me, the letter requesting support by the NYPD until May 17th, which, as I said, is not only 2 days after university commencement, but 1 day after senior graduation. So that means keeping police presence on campus until all students are gone. That email did not only not go out to students, but for about 10 minutes Was offline. Students were receiving messages that they were not authorized to access the public safety page. And something I just want to mention is that this claim that the individuals inside Hamilton Hall may not have been students—you know—there is, as of right now, no way to confirm whether that is true or not. But that is a first for us hearing tonight, and I should say that. If indeed there are individuals, there were individuals inside Hamilton Hall that were not students, then that means that the university's lockdown policies egregiously failed.

Ben Erdman: Yeah, I think that's a fantastic point to make. And I also wanted to say, you know, we've been at this coverage for 2 weeks now, and we have gotten interviews with people from all over the spectrum, all affiliations to Columbia University. And though not everyone we interviewed by any means supports We did have a lot of people that did not support the New York Police Department being deployed on campus. So now that has happened not only twice with arrests of students, but also is being mandated for the rest of the semester. So I just think that's an important thing to notice because— to note, sorry, because even those that did not agree with the protesters, the sentiment surrounding NYPD being deployed on campus NYPD on campus has been very, very negative throughout the past 2 weeks. So again, I also, I think we need to mention, Ali, I don't know if you can pull up the email where Manoush Shafiq stated that she did not think it was effective calling the police the first time and did not think they would pursue it as an option again. I'm going to cut to David while we find that email, but we'll be back to chat with you about it in just a bit because I think it's very important. David, go ahead.

Speaker 10: Hi. Thanks, Matthew. Just a couple of updates here from what we can see on 113th and Amsterdam in terms of movement. They did bring in an extra NYPD cop about 10 minutes ago. Now an ambulance has also entered the scene from Mount Sinai and is on standby here on 114th, as well as an FDNY vehicle.

David González: Although one thing I really wanted to point out that I'm now just now noticing, and I'm not sure how long they've been here, there are a couple of— I can't tell if they're just Also, protesters are just sort of freshmen who live in John Jay. They have now started to hang outside of these gates.

Speaker 10: There are gates on the outside exterior of windows, and they're now hanging outside trying to get a kind of a better vantage point of whatever's going on here on Amsterdam.

David González: So definitely a lot of movement here.

Speaker 10: Still kind of waiting to see what exactly happens or what— where these protesters decide apparently to move to.

Ben Erdman: Thank you. Thank you for that update, David. I'm going to pass it now to Ian for an update.

Ian Pumphrey: Thank you, Macy. I want to say that me, uh, uh, Casey and McKenna, and now Leon— I see him now— we have now walked into Pulitzer Hall. We were graciously invited, uh, into the place, uh, for shelter, not only from the rain, but also because a lot of our reporters right now, uh, again, are feeling very, very threatened, uh, again, by a lot of these sentiments that Sarah in Georgia and And Ken and I had brought up earlier about the threats thrown at police officers, and in a sort of moment of press-to-press solidarity, we now are camping out in Pulitzer Hall right now until we can find a way to get to campus or get back to the station in a safe manner. I don't think I can say much more. I'm sorry.

Ben Erdman: Yep. Thank you so much for that, Ian. We appreciate it, and we appreciate all the hard work that you have done tonight. I just want to reiterate once again that the journalism school has graciously invited our WKCR reporters that are still on campus into Pulitzer Hall. But before that, they were getting denied access to all of the buildings that they were trying to enter while NYPD was telling them they had to enter a building to avoid getting in the way of or possibly getting arrested. So that is important to note, that had it not been for the journalism school, now we could not guarantee— Thank you. the safety of our reporters as they were being denied entry into many of the buildings on Columbia's campus. I'm going to pass it back over to Ali for a minute. But once again, if any of our reporters have anything breaking, please message or feel free to interrupt. Ali.

Speaker 14: Thank you, Macy. You left off with a sort of quote from an email 4 days ago on April 26th about Minouche Shafik and the Board of Trustees recognizing that calling NYPD was a mistake, basically. So I will read out that paragraph now because it bears repeating. Quote, we called on NYPD to clear an encampment once, but we all share the view, based on discussions within our community and with outside experts, that to bring back the NYPD at this time would be counterproductive. Further inflaming what is happening on campus and drawing thousands to our doorstep who would threaten our community, end quote. Now, I recognize the situation has changed. In fact, the occupation of Hamilton Hall is, of course, a pretty serious escalation of the situation on April 26th when this email was sent. But I cannot say that I expect anything less than what we saw after the previous arrests in terms of, and I quote, further inflaming what is happening on campus and drawing thousands to our doorstep who would threaten our community. And in light of this, I think it is worth noting that the university's priority is safety and order on campus. We'll see how those two square up.

Ben Erdman: Thank you, Ali. Teddy, I'm just going to put you on to add a comment.

Speaker 15: This is not at all urgent, so please cut me off if need be. I just want to say that My role here at KCR is as the student life director, which is a part of ensuring the honestly the happiness and the safety and the sanctity of the station and the people within it. I just want to talk about how you know as a journalistic source we are here to bring you non-biased news to the airwaves and things of that nature. And I just wanted to display how distressing this has been for everyone within the station and of course. And of course, on campus, as well. Regardless of position or where you may land on what you may feel, this has been a very traumatizing event, I would say, for many people within the station. I do not want to get too— to reveal people's businesses too much, but there's been many people within and outside of the station who are succumbing to the emotional pressure of this, as this is a harrowing moment in many of our college careers. Yeah. Historic in many ways that are very much tragic, which I think is fair to say, not in regards to any sort of position, but simply what has happened on this campus, the campus that we live on. I mean, me personally, I live and sleep on this campus in Carmen Hall myself, and this is an incredibly traumatic and harrowing event for many of us around us. And I think that— I mean, honestly, as someone who's in charge, at least of the sanctity of people within our station, this has been a very tough day to watch as my colleagues honestly crumble to the reality that is their college and their community and their home.

Ben Erdman: Yeah, absolutely. To reiterate what Teddy said, and we've been talking about this for 2 weeks straight, but we have a very special perspective here as not only reporters, but as Columbia students. You could see the raw journalism here tonight from our students once again that we're seeing arrests within their own student body, mass police within their own campus, as Teddy said, sometimes where they live. I believe Georgia has an update. Georgia, go ahead.

Georgia: I do, yeah. Thank you, Macy. I'm here, as I've been, at 114th and Amsterdam. I'm outside of campus. And right now, from within the— on 114th between Broadway and Amsterdam, about 50 cops just spilled out onto the The intersection that has been barricaded off. They're now getting into a sort of formation here. They're all facing away from me right now towards the other side of the intersection from where I am at, where there has been a very large gathering of people that have been blocking some NYPD trucks. This is right by the Mount Sinai Morningside.

Ben Erdman: Okay.

Georgia: And yeah, again, this is a very large group of cops, about 50 cops, all in formation facing this other side of the street. From what I can see, I think they're trying to just sort of move people away from this area to let an NYPD van through, which they're doing successfully. So I'm not sure actually what this formation is here for, but we're going to monitor it closely and move away if we have to.

Ben Erdman: Great. Thank you. I appreciate that update. And I just also wanted to quickly ask, Quote an article from the Washington Post because once again I think that the angle that we had a really hard time getting because of police restriction tonight was that of the police entering Hamilton Hall. Though we had plenty of video footage to corroborate what we were saying, that was the toughest angle to get for our reporters as movement was very restricted. But I'm reading an article from the Washington Post right now that says. News footage showed police officers with body armor and riot shields entering the building through a window, which they accessed using a specialized police van with a ramp mounted on its roof. Some officers entered with their guns drawn. So I just wanted to mention that because obviously we did not have reporters that were able to see that, but it has been reported by The Washington Post. And I think that's important to note, especially Considering how the university has characterized the events of Hamilton Hall, one thing that I just want to mention, as Ali said in her discussion earlier, despite the university's accusations that they believe some of the protesters in Hamilton Hall may not be affiliates, the Columbia campus has been restricted to Columbia University ID holders for over— for 2 weeks now. So—

Georgia: Right.

Ben Erdman: Anyone that did not have a Columbia ID that was in Hamilton Hall, if that was the case, would have gotten in while that policy was in place. So I know Ali kind of mentioned that that reflects on the security of the university here, but if you want to restate.

Speaker 14: Yes, I think, you know, this claim that it was not students in there reflects really poorly On the state of lockdown that the university enforced, you know, and this is of course personal opinion right now, I should say. But as Teddy said, this is, this is a moment that is as historically as it is personally important for us as students of Columbia University. And so I think I can— I and many others of my colleagues can be excused for a little bit of our Opinions right now, but I think that if indeed it is true that many of the individuals inside Hamilton Hall were not Columbia students, then what does that say about the effectiveness of the university security? What does that say about the policies they implemented allegedly to keep students safe that have disrupted campus life for almost two weeks now?

Ale Diaz Pizarro: Yeah, and what does it say that they have?

Speaker 14: As of now, almost an hour after this communication was issued, what does it say that students have yet to receive it as a single direct email from the university president who is allegedly acting in their safety?

Ben Erdman: I agree. And I also just want to mention, though this seems completely of secondary importance right now, that academics at Columbia have really not been put on a standstill despite what we have been seeing in mainstream media. Finals have not been made optional. The only communication speculating about that that we have seen is from the Columbia College Student Council, which is a governing board made up of students. So I'm going to hand it over to Teddy now, but that's just an important thing to note.

Speaker 15: Incredibly quick, I just want to give a little bit of context here. I do have a live view of Hamilton Hall, and I just really want to give some context here. I have this live view from an Instagram Live of a suitemate of mine or a classmate of mine, Up here, because media and legal observers have been pushed so far away from the area that there is absolutely zero view of the hall from anywhere else except from students ourselves. Yeah, I will not make a comment on that, but wanted to just share what that is.

Ben Erdman: Yeah. I'm going to put Maria on now, too, who is back in the studio for a comment.

Teddy Weich: WKCR-FM New York and WKCR-HD. This is Teddy on the microphone right now. I have here in the studio, thankfully and safely, David González, who was on the field. I'm going to have him here to describe what he saw out there, what it was like making it back to campus, and any other updates. David, I'm going to put you on now. You're good to go.

David González: Thanks, Teddy. There was a lot to see. I'm still particularly struck by these sort of The panic that I definitely saw on some of the freshmen's faces as we were— they were barricaded into some of the dorms, the panic by all the student press as we frantically tried to plead with the NYPD to kind of let us stay on, even though we were escorted out. Definitely a lot of emotions kind of riding high in a very tense time. As far as I understand from— we had— NYPD was not very willing to sort of let us move We were on 114th and Amsterdam, and obviously the station is here on Broadway near the 114th intersection. It took a lot of pleading with NYPD and a lot of time passing to finally be able to get across and get approval to cross 114th to get to the station. And even at the sort of barricade nearest the station, it took at least 6 of us, including Maria and Tanvi, who were in the station, to kind of help advocate Yeah. And then they opened the gate for the rest of us to get in. As far as I saw, NYPD is definitely still barricading all of the apartments on 114th. Sort of people are still stuck, and I assume under the shelter-in-place order from earlier. Definitely still a very sort of tense time here on Columbia's campus, even as I think those arrests may have already been made and both Hamilton Hall and the lawns kind of cleared out.

Teddy Weich: And can you also tell them about the laptop situation?

David González: Oh, yeah. So, as we've been reporting all day, a lot of our field reporters don't live on campus. And so we sort of were in a situation where we were stuck, stuck on campus to an extent, because if we left, that we would lose a field reporter on the field. A lot of our— a lot of our items, personal belongings, including my backpack containing my water bottle, laptop and other sort of essentials that I brought out onto the field were left out in front of Hartley— in front of Hartley Hall, which is a good— a decent distance away from Hamilton Hall, sort of still on the outside, still somewhat near, in a situation where I was kind of being— I was able to go back to my bag and grab my things. But before anything happened, went down. I don't think— I definitely didn't anticipate the NYPD clearing the entire lawn, so I have no idea where my belongings are anymore. That backpack, as per Find My iPhone half an hour ago, is still somewhere on the lawn. So I guess I'll have to find out where my laptop goes, if it gets put together with anything or if I'm able to access it later. But hopefully, hopefully it wasn't destroyed or damaged in any way. way, among all the chaos.

Teddy Weich: Thank you so much for that, David. I mean, truly very courageous of you, what you were doing out there. We thank you so much. We appreciate you infinitely, along with everyone else in the studio. I do want to say, I did just get a message from Leon in the chat that apparently they are letting press out of J-School right now. That is the word from Leon. At this current moment, they are letting press out of J-School Right now. And by J-school, I mean the Columbia Journalism School, which is situated in Pulitzer Hall. This is definitely monumental. I mean, this is incredibly important. Again, we've had our— many reporters, including our own here at WKCR, have— I mean, I'll call it trapped, really, inside of the journalism school. As we heard earlier, there was threats of being arrested if anyone left the building, including the dean of the journalism school. themselves, which obviously is not a very— a predicament that anyone would enjoy, as, of course, the fire hazard of being stuck in a— cramped in a building, but then, of course, the fact that, you know, that means no access to food, no access to dorms. I mean, of course, if you have a medicine you have to take, I'd hope that you wouldn't have to— you didn't, because you would not be allowed out. So, yeah, very, very harrowing.

Sarah Barlin: Yeah.

Teddy Weich: And actually, I'm seeing Ted here in the field has his hand raised. I'm going to take it over to Ted here. Ted, so glad to see you. So glad to see your camera on. You are good to go. You're live on the air.

Speaker 13: Teddy, it's really great to hear your voice right now. I'm in the bottom of Hartley, and I'm trying to leave, as we're hearing word that press is being allowed to leave. We're not being allowed to leave Hartley right now. We've still got some riot police on the outside. Again, I've been up for 40 straight hours, 39 and a half straight hours at this point. I just really want to go home and go to sleep, but unlikely that that's going to happen right now, as we're still looking at some riot police outside of Hartley.

Teddy Weich: Thank you so much for that, Ted. I'm incredibly very sorry that that is still happening. I'm sorry to hear that you're still stuck. I mean, Ted, for the listeners, I mean, what a guy. Like, he is one of the most dedicated people I've ever met in my life, one of the sweetest souls you could ever meet. And he dedicates it all to his work here, his passion here. He's just beyond invaluable, a true cornerstone of everything that goes on here at WKCR. And I am incredibly saddened to hear that he is still stuck in there. I'm sorry.

David González: Yeah.

Teddy Weich: —after dedicating so much to this, not being able to leave. You know, for our listeners at home, despite the action cooling down here on campus, there are still seas of riot police out on the streets. There are still riot police out on campus. And it just— it greatly pains me to see the trauma that my friends, my dearest peers, my dearest colleagues are going through right now. Again, I mean, I, you know, man, student journalism, student first, man. Like, this has been a very tough situation for all of us. And again, Ted, out there in the field, man, I love you so much. We all do, Ted.

Speaker 15: We all do.

Teddy Weich: You dedicate it all. And I am going to be very shameless in this second to show my love for Ted. If you didn't already catch the connection, my name's Teddy. His name's Ted. I'm currently filling the position that he had last year. He was last year's student life director. I'm the current student life director. There is a true— there's nothing like the Ted-to-Ted connection. He was my introduction to WKCR, for those out there. I first heard about WKCR at a fair, you know, at a club fair. I met Ted there. Ted was the first person to bring me in. Ted was the first person to train me. Ted was the person who licensed me. Truly, Ted, I love you. Everyone here loves you. You are one of the most incredible people I've ever met. Sorry for that little tangent there, but I just wanted to put that out there to everyone, to just show how much— I mean, we appreciate everyone in the station, truly. But, you know, I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to Ted, because I truly think I mean, there's almost no one like him out there. I got Perry on here, Ted's roommate. Let's— you know, Ted, you might want to tune out in case the waterworks start coming on, but Perry, you're good to go.

Perry Wakatsuki: Oh, my goodness. Thank you, Teddy. I'll say myself that Ted was my introduction to KCR, as well. And we lived together last year. We live together this year. The commitment over the past 2 weeks To never be back at our suite. It has been incredible. And kind of building off this, just the general sentiment of everyone here in the station, I think we're just tired. I think that that's very fair to say, that all of us are not just like on a— we are surface-level exhausted. We were like physically exhausted. I think we are also emotionally exhausted. All the people around me, I'm inspired by so much and how much they've put. But I think especially when people return back to the station, it's kind of like an exhale and just like a—

David González: there's not—

Perry Wakatsuki: we can only give so much.

David González: So it's— I don't know how to put it, but it's—

Speaker 10: yeah. Yeah.

Teddy Weich: Thank you so much for that, Perry.

Georgia: Thank you.

Teddy Weich: Yeah, I just wanted to put that out there. There's so many amazing people who've been dedicating day in and out. I mean, being a part of WKCR's e-board right now, we've all— everyone here, we've been here for 2 weeks dedicating everything we have to giving you this coverage. We put it all— put it all on the airwave, I guess, for you to provide this. So, with that being said, just wanted to give a little shout-out to our Amazing station manager, an amazing field reporter, Ted, who's still out there, still stuck. Just wanted to send some love and strength and also say that we still have other reporters still stuck there. Ian Pumphrey, Sawyer Huckaby and McKenna are also still—

Perry Wakatsuki: And Leon.

Teddy Weich: And Leon are still stuck out there. I believe Leon said they could leave, but I'm not so sure what the status is on our reporters getting back. Safely yet. And so, yeah, I take no shame in taking up some airspace to dedicate to, I mean, the people who make up this station, who are out there on the field right now, risking it all to cover this. So, with that being said, I'm going to transition. I have Ollie here in the station to provide some more commentary. I wanted to take that moment. I think it was very important.

Speaker 15: Yeah.

Teddy Weich: not talk about how much I love the people within this station. So, Ale, you are good to go now.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: Thank you, Teddy. I definitely want to echo the sentiment, you know, the incredible love and admiration for everyone at the station for the past 2 weeks. But I also want to extend a very heartfelt thank you to everyone who's tuned in tonight. You know, I've been at WKCQ We've been doing this show, The Real News Network, on NPR for almost 3 years now, and it means a lot to get folks tuned in. You know, there is a piece of news on all of this, which is that as of an hour ago exactly, our website experienced such a heavy traffic load that it led to an intermittent outage on nearly every single Columbia College website. Including WKCR, the websites for Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science. And so, you know, the school domain kind of made our website a static website with our logo and our message. So if you logged on to WKCR and just saw a sort of pared-down website, that's why. It seems that we got enough listeners to shut down all of Columbia College's servers. So thank you to everyone who has listened tonight. Thank you to everyone who has sent in photos and tips and messages of support that have kind of, you know, got us— yeah, I mean, I'm kind of at a loss for words. So thank you for tuning in. And as Macy said before Teddy took over, I do want to stress that we are not nearly I have other stuff to say, but it looks like— do we have an update?

Speaker 10: Not yet.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, I'm seeing sort of on media a really, you know, just a lot of discourse going back and forth about this claim of outside agitators being Yes. —present at Hamilton Hall. Again, I want to claim that— I mean, I want to restate that it is not true that there were no students in Hamilton Hall, and that the only proof that is currently out there that there were nonstudents inside Hamilton Hall is a statement put out by the university at 9:26 p.m., and that, again, might I add, has still not been circulated to the student body. I should add that in a touch of irony, there is an article from CNN from yesterday titled Examining the Long History of the Outside Agitator Narrative. So, you know, it is worth seeing how this narrative will unfold. And of course, it'll not be possible to confirm who inside Hamilton Hall was or was not a student within a couple of days.

Speaker 10: Right.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: days, but it is worth considering why this narrative that there were non-students in charge of the Hamilton Hall occupation is cropping up now.

Teddy Weich: Thank you so much for that, Ali. I now have— I now will take it to David here, David González, who has some more commentary to add. David, you are good to go.

David González: Yeah, I just want to add, for the last, what is it, 13, days now. I've spent a lot of my time field reporting on the encampment. I've sort of— I've been there for a long time. I think I spent more time on that lawn than I did in my room the last couple of weeks. So I definitely started to recognize a lot of the faces and kind of got to know some of the protesters who were there. And I can at least personally confirm that many of the protesters I saw inside of Hamilton Hall were for sure students, personally.

Speaker 10: Okay.

Teddy Weich: Thank you so much for that, David. Thank you. That's very important context, as I think a very critical theme here that's been running through these past 2 weeks from a lot of different people, but I will definitely say it here: student journalism is crucial. Because of our position to be on this campus, to be students here, we have exclusive access. Honestly, I don't want to use the word exclusive. I don't like to use the word exclusive. That sounds too impersonal. I want to say that we have the very grateful access to be on this campus and giving coverage to the students. These are our peers. These are the people we go to class with. These are our roommates, our suitemates. These are the people we go to lunch with, dinner with, this, that and the third. And so, yes, student journalism is crucial. We have the access to campus to provide nonstop coverage, to provide the The accurate voicing of what exactly is going on. And so, you know, the way— the only place to find— I won't say the only place, but actually, yeah, the only place to find accurate and updated reporting will be any of the amazing, wonderful student outlets on campus. That includes us, but that includes The Spectator, that includes BOG, that includes the coverage of Columbia's Journalism School. I want I want to really highlight here and emphasize that student journalism is more than crucial, and especially in times like these, where we are the only ones who are able to give you accurate coverage of exactly what is happening, when it is happening. So, thank you, David, so much for that context. Thank you, Ali, so much for that context. It is incredibly important to note that what happened here tonight was anything but impersonal. anything but something that you can just shake off as having nothing to do with Columbia. We know these people. If you're listening right now and you're a student, you probably know some of these people. With that being said, Perry, did you have anything you wanted to add here?

Perry Wakatsuki: Yeah, I was just going to say, moving forward, I wonder how the general Columbia community will fare for the rest of the year and even moving forward. I'm sure there will be lingering questions about trust in the administration and a general sense of community, or what the— how the student body will react to this generally moving forward, because it's— I imagine it might take some time and some effort to reestablish the relationship between admin and students. And also, moving out the rest of the year, I—

David González: Yeah.

Perry Wakatsuki: The Minouche letter said that NYPD will still be on campus for the rest of the year. So I don't know what campus culture, what the campus attitude will be like moving forward.

Teddy Weich: Thank you so much for that, Perry. And now I have Olay to add some more commentary.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: Yeah, just to add a little bit onto that, Perry, I think you're absolutely right that having the Police on campus until May 17th, which we reported on almost 2 hours ago, and again, not communicated to the student body as of 11:48 PM. But the fact that there is a— that there will be police on campus through the end of the semester, and that academics are pretty much still expected to continue as You know, there's been a lot of narrative about the disturbance of academic life at Columbia over the past 2 weeks, and that seems to be a tenor of discussion that has not reached every classroom. Academic expectations— professors have been very understanding, but academic expectations, by and large, remain mostly unchanged. So, to me, there is—

Ben Erdman: Yeah.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: A certain dissonance between what happened tonight and not communicating it with students. And, you know, today was the first day of the study period for final exams. You know, that's what I have to say. But before I pass it on over, I want to report that our reporters, Ted Schmiedler and Ella Preciado, are still stuck in Hartley Hall inside campus and are, as of yet, unable to make their way back to the station or make their way out of campus. So that seems like an important development. And, you know, of course, we're not going anywhere off the air. And sorry, Teddy, again, one last update that just came in from the emergency management operations team, which was the same team that sent out the stay-in-place order earlier. comes a very brief message, quote, heightened activity on Morningside campus concluded. Area is all clear at this time.

Teddy Weich: Thank you so much for that, Aley. I do want to apologize to Ella Prasad. I forgot you were out there as well. Very big, big apology. And now a very big, big shout-out to Ella for all the amazing work and dedication that she has been doing.

Speaker 15: Thank you.

Teddy Weich: Yeah, I want to thank her for that and apologize for not saying that before.

Speaker 15: Yes.

Teddy Weich: And with that being said, do we have any updates from the field? I do not think so. So, with that being said, I can't think of anything else that must be noted right now, except for the fact that I need to remind you that you are tuned into WKCR-FM New York and WKCR-HD. That is 89.9 on the FM dial or wkcr.org. We thank you so much again for joining us. Your listenership is crucial, and we thank you for being here. And again, the current update is that we are trying to— we're on the phone right now trying to get public safety to allow our students to— our reporters, I mean, to be escorted safely from campus, Hartley Hall and Pulitzer and things, back to the station, as there are still riot police and officers outside and there's still barricades up. With that being said, there's nothing else at the moment to report. But of course, as you know, as always, we will get right back with you with any breaking or pressing coverage. And for now, we're going to go back to the music. Thank you so much for being here.

Ben Erdman: Thank you.

Teddy Weich: Update from Ian Pumphrey in the field. Ethan, you're— I mean, sorry, Ian, you are live and good to go.

Ian Pumphrey: No problem, Teddy. Uh, thank you so much for handing it over to me. This is Ian Pumphrey. It is 12:17 AM. We are finally leaving Pulitzer Hall, joined here by McKenna Roberts, Sawyer Huckabee, Sarah Barlin, and Leon Chu. We're finally leaving. Also, and Casey Lamb, whose birthday is right now. He just turned 20 today. Anyway, I just thought that was a fun little detail I think the listeners should know. But anyway, we're really honestly relieved to leave Poulter Hall right now after the threat we received earlier from, again, NYPD. We're actually passing pretty— I think I've passed maybe 30 or 40 different NYPD officers.

Speaker 13: Wow.

Ian Pumphrey: In walking back. We're also a little confused on how to get back, but I think I should report all of this because I think we are some of the last of the student reporting team at WKCR to be leaving campus right now. And I just wanted to let all of our listeners know, things seem to have calmed down. We're all beyond tired, honestly beyond delirious. And I just personally wanted to thank all of the listeners at this time. Thank you.

Teddy Weich: Thank you so much, Ian. I'm absolutely elated to hear that you are finally making your way out safely. Wow, that is an incredible relief for everyone here in the studio, everyone here in the station. I thank you so much for your dedication. Amazing job out there. Amazing, amazing. And so glad to hear that. I don't see any other updates from the field at this time, other than— oh, In other great news, as well— or I guess I shouldn't say great, but it seems David is in the process of trying to get his bag. So hopefully that is a success, as it was left out there. And we'll see what that process is like for any left materials outside right now. So, yeah, there's no other updates at this time, no other breaking or pressing coverage that I can provide you at this moment. So we're going to transition back to the music for the time being. And if anything happens, any more updates come to be, I will share them. Oh, and it seems I'm getting a screenshot here of a message, of a safety report here, that states Morningside campus continues to be restricted to students residing on campus and staff providing essential services. So, that is the current update from a safety notification that we got here. And I'm going to hold for just a minute, as David is going to hop on in just a second to provide us a report from Hamilton. Let's see. David, you are on the air live and ready to go.

David González: Thanks, Teddy.

Speaker 13: Yeah, I luckily was able to get past the sort of blocked-off entrance. Obviously, Morningside Campus is still restricted to only people who live on campus. I do not live on campus, but I was able to get on to get my backpack with my laptop, which I did report was still here. It is safe and sound, thankfully, but what is certainly not safe and sound is Hamilton Hall here. I'm just trying to paint sort of a picture since I'm up here enclosed before I Head back to the station. But you can definitely see a lot of the external barricades and even internal barricades are kind of thrown over here at the base of the stairs in front of Hamilton. That includes the outside tables, these sort of metal tables that were used as barricades on the outside, some of these commencement barricades that were being used on the inside, as well as all of the tables and desks. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That were being barricaded, barricading the doors on the inside. And as they get a little bit of a closer look of Hamilton Hall itself, the property damage is kind of insane, at least to the windows out here. All of the doors have now been busted open. And I mean, we reported originally that this right door had a single hole through it that was put through the window last night during the original occupation of Hamilton Hall. I'm sorry, can you repeat that? Well, I don't see a single window that is not shattered or broken to some extent here at Hamilton Hall, at least from the ground floor. On the higher floors, a lot of the newspapers and blinds are still down, and this cornucopia over here on the right, which you might be able to see in my video, is still standing, with most of it honestly seeming quite untouched. Most of the banners are now also being taken down from the balcony. Including the poster that renamed it, at least according to the occupation, and I'm probably going to mispronounce it, but I think it's Heinz Hall. So definitely quite a scene and quite a spectacle here at Hamilton Hall. NYPD is still present on campus, although people seem to be able to move a little more freely now. I definitely see students kind of walking around, trying to gather their bearings, grab belongings. Meet up with friends, et cetera. There's still a decent NYPD presence here in front of Hamilton. I count about 20 uniformed NYPD officers right here in front of John Jay. I want to say about 5 or 6 sort of loitering in front of Hartley Hall, where my bag was, and a good 4 or 5 in front of Hamilton Hall, as well as a couple of higher-up officials in their white uniforms, and I think I saw a handful still inside of Hamilton Hall doing final sweeps. NYPD presence on campus is still definitely here. There are police all around campus right now, but it seems that student activity is a little more— less restrictive now. Students are being encouraged by both NYPD and Public Safety to walk around freely now. Granted, I'm not sure how safe some of them will feel doing that. I certainly feel quite startled after what I witnessed today. But yeah, I just wanted to— oh, and here on the northern end of Hamilton Hall, you might be able to see some of the barricades. It looks like they also got through this door. This one seems undamaged, although everyone who was standing here obviously is no longer here. All the barricades have been moved out of the way of the undergraduate admissions office, so admissions officers can look forward to entering their offices tomorrow.

Speaker 10: Thank you.

Speaker 13: Yeah, I will be exiting campus now because, as I said, after what I saw today, I'm not sure I feel safe on this campus with all this police presence. But I'll hand it back to you guys in the studio and try to meet up with the rest of our KCR colleagues so we can get back to the station with you guys.

Teddy Weich: Thank you so much, David, for that update. I apologize for the lack of safety that you have been Uh, awarded, uh, here on campus. Uh, unfortunately, safety has become a luxury that has not been, um, readily available for, um, our students here, but, uh, you know, especially our reporters, our student journalists. So I thank you so much for that update and that coverage. Yeah, looking at the videos of, uh, the— of, uh, David's Zoom there, it looks like, uh, I mean, truly disarray. With the amount of, you know, tables and chairs and boards and this, that, and the third that were strung about outside of Hamilton on the stairs and things of that nature. And, yeah, I can also confirm from the video that all the windows seem to be knocked out. I'm not sure if that came— that was on purpose by police forces, that was an accident, what have you, because I do not want to— I do not want to be quoting specifics here, but it seemed that when the protesters knocked out the windows yesterday, they focused on the bottom 2 windows in an attempt to, you know, lock the doors with a bike chain or so. But now all, I believe, 6 windows per door have been knocked out, which is definitely a new— something different from what it was earlier. Right. So yeah, that's a big update there. However, the admissions door is what David was describing. The door of admissions, which is on the back of— sorry— Hamilton, have not been broken out. And I believe the pronunciation that David was looking for was Hins Hall, as the protesters had called it. They had renamed it Hins Hall with a banner, you could say.

Speaker 15: Yeah.

Teddy Weich: Hung about. But yeah, that is the update from there. And a quick note that I got from Ali here was that, you know, something worth mentioning, there's been many parallels drawn between, you know, now, 2024, and 1968. And so I would be remiss to not state that, you know, Hamilton Hall was cleared on April 30th, 56 years to the date of When it has been raided now. So, back in 1968, on April 30th, also a Tuesday, I believe, Hamilton Hall was raided during the protests that were going on back then to fight segregation. And to the date now, again, Hamilton Hall has been raided. So, yeah. Yeah, that is the update right now from Hamilton. Thank you again so much, from David.

Georgia: Thank you.

Teddy Weich: That is what it is for right now in the field. I'm going to take it back to some music for now, in case any more pressing updates or coverage comes about. We're still, you know, our reporters are finally able to leave the buildings that they were stuck in, but we're still working on getting them back into the studio in the station. And of course, I will update you when anything pressing or breaking comes in. And I want to again thank you so much for tuning in and listening. My name is Teddy, it's been a joy to bring you this coverage. And yeah, we're going to go to the music for now. Thank you so much. Important thing I will cover all day: all our reporters have successfully made it back to the studio, to the station. Our reporters are back in here. That means McKenna, Sawyer, Ian, Ella, all of them there. Ted, Ted. Leon, they're all coming back now, and I see them on the security camera actually wishing Casey Lamb a very happy birthday. Our business manager, a very, very happy birthday. He turns 20. Happy birthday, Casey. We love you. Glad to see you back. So yeah, that is the update for now. Yeah, thank you so much. Over these past 2 weeks, we're just going to give a quick round the room to Thank you. I want to give a little— just a little debrief on everyone who's here right now and to kind of celebrate what this moment has been before we all sign off. I want to remind you that you are tuned into WKCR-FM New York and WKCR-HD. That's 89.9 FM on the dial and wkcr.org. Let's start this off right. My name is Teddy Weich. I am a freshman at Columbia College. And, yeah, I'm going to pass it right along.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Hi, this is Macy Hanslick Behrend, class of 2025, School of General Studies. And I wanted to thank you all for being with us for the past close to 336 hours now. I'll pass it on.

Speaker 10: Hi, this is Ella Preciado. I am a Columbia College sophomore.

Teddy Weich: This is Ben Erdman, CC '25.

Speaker 10: Casey Lamb, CC '26. This is Tanvi Krishnanwarthiyam, Barnard College, class of 2025.

David González: This is Ian Pumphrey, Columbia College, class of 2026.

Sarah Barlin: Sarah Barlin, Barnard, class of 2024.

Teddy Weich: This is Makenna Roberts, This is Leon Zhou, CC '23, now SEAS '24.

Speaker 10: This is Maria Shaughnessy, Barnard Class of 2024.

Teddy Weich: This is Ted Schmiedler, CC Class of 2026.

Perry Wakatsuki: This is Perry Wakatsuki, CC '26.

Speaker 10: This is Natalie Nahara of Barnard College, 2025.

David González: This is David Gonzalez, Columbia College, class of '24.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: This is Ale Diaz Pizarro, Columbia College, class of 2025.

Teddy Weich: Folks, that is everyone. I could write a book about the amazing people in this room. We just want to give you all of our love. Your listenership is more valuable than we could ever begin to describe. Student press is crucial, and I'm reminded by that every single time I look at every single person's face in this room. We have dedicated it all. We put it all on the line for you. We have We spent the past 2 weeks, night and day, serving you, the Columbia community, the city of New York, the world, giving you everything we have, everything that's in the tank, all times, nonstop. We love you. We really do. And I love everyone in this room. Again, I'm Teddy Weich. Any last thoughts from anyone?

Georgia: I just want people to know that we're not stopping paying attention to what's happening on Columbia. Today was a big night for all of us, and I know we all need some rest. But depending on what happens here at Columbia, we're going to keep our eyes to that and keep you updated as we need to.

David González: I also just want to reiterate— at least I think I can speak on behalf of everyone when I say that it has been an honor to serve the entire community that listens to us and be able to report as accurately as we can everything that has happened on this campus.

Teddy Weich: And with that, this is the one and only WKCR. Thank you, folks.

Speaker 10: The person being interviewed has requested not to be identified in any capacity, so we will not be providing any identifying factors that are not within the interview itself.

Sarah Barlin: Yeah. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. The thoughts, views, and opinions held within the context of this interview do not necessarily reflect the thoughts, views, or opinions beholden to WKCR, the WKCR executive board, or the Columbia Board of Trustees, our license holders here at WKCR. My name is Sarah Barlin. It is 10:25 in the morning on May 2nd. I am joined here right now with an Occupy Wall Street member. I'm here with one of the occupiers of Hamilton Hall, who was released last night from central booking. This individual has chosen to remain anonymous. But I would first like to ask her, how did this all start? Like, how did this, how did this whole occupation begin?

Speaker 10: It was very much an organization of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest Club Coalition, headed by SJP, Students for Justice in Students for Justice in Palestine and JVP, Jewish Voices for Peace. They organized— they were part of the organizers of the original encampment. And that only began to grow after those initial arrests. Clubs, I know, joined CUAD. But those were the main— CUAD, C-U-A-D, was the main organizing student body putting this together day by day.

Sarah Barlin: From my perspective, the occupation of Hamilton Hall was incredibly organized. Can you speak to any of the strategizing or organizing or preplanning that went into it?

Speaker 10: So I was not a part of the organization or board. We all had input in our own ways, and we were making sure that our voices were heard, if not in larger groups, as a part of smaller, more specific risk-adjacent groups.

Sarah Barlin: And I assume you guys were all dark red robes?

Speaker 10: Yes, I was a dark red. So within those dark red clusters, we would discuss tactics, and each cluster had its own specific job going in that was predetermined in advance of going.

Sarah Barlin: Can you explain to the listeners the— what the division of the red roles mean and the difference between dark red and light red roles?

Speaker 10: So the main difference was the risk assessment. assessment that each of us took on individually. There is a clear— as clear as we could gather from legal support and those who had been arrested in the past, what the most likely risk of arrest and use of force might be and potential charges. So the difference between dark red and light red were just the intensity of those risks.

Sarah Barlin: Can you give us, like, a narrative— or not really a narrative, but, like, Can you give us an image or a story of kind of what exactly went down as you guys took over Hamilton Hall, what I believe was a few nights ago?

Speaker 10: It began at 12:30, and I think we all finally sat down and checked the clock at 3:00. So even though I saw a headline just now that it was locked down within 5 minutes, barricaded, and the front doors were locked, there was much work done within to secure the multiple different exits and entrances and potential modes to enter through, not just doors, but windows and the likes. There was a number of us going in, and with that larger number, we were able to delegate tasks before going in. So we each had entrance, you know, 12:30 on the dot, duties to attend to upon the immediate And once those were handled, there was a quick analysis of what needed to be done and where, as quickly as possible, before— by 3:00, we all more or less took turns on the balcony with the flags— or the banners, I should say. So until that break, we were all just sort of— we had our initial tasks that probably were secured within the first 15 minutes. There were a few contingencies that we didn't plan for that ended up occurring.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: We were there.

Sarah Barlin: Do you mind explaining what those contingencies were?

Speaker 10: So we were very aware of the potential danger of— for us and others— of having non-protesters within— locked within the building with us. That was a large risk. That was something we worked on, getting non-protesters out of the building. So that, you know, elongated. We had doors closed that we had to— front doors closed that we had to reopen. But it was all handled. I personally took one person who worked in the building, who was having a very hard time coming to terms with our need for him to leave, for his own safety and ours. I was able to walk him out. He was brandishing a fire extinguisher. He was feeling very threatened by us, although we were not making threats. We were just asking him to leave. I was able to calm him down and walk him out with my hand. I was able to walk him out with my hand. holding my hand. So, that was not a task I was delegated to do, but we were all finding ways to support what needed to be done, if not through moving potential risk factors to barricading risk factors. And if those were all taken care of, people were just running water in support.

Sarah Barlin: On that, on that note, I don't know if it was the same facilities officer that you're mentioning, but a facilities officer did give statement that he was, quote, held hostage. What would your response to that be?

Speaker 10: We made it clear, and we have on video, that we were asking him to leave. We did not want him there. We asked if he wanted— if he was staying on his own volition. He said yes. He was escorted out. All the potential hostages were escorted out. So there were none by the end of that first night. Within that first, I will say, 3 hours of movement, we had cleared the building. The intent was to clear it before we entered, but that did not go to plan. So, we did clear the building. It was apparent from the jump that we wanted no one in there but ourselves. And once we entered and realized that there were civilians in there, not a part of the protest, it was very much an all-hands-on-deck movement to get them out. And what happened? As much as possible, while still maintaining enough bodies on closing and barricading entrances, key entrances and exits. So we had as much support getting those people out as we did barricading ourselves in. That was a high priority for us. I know, as someone who was taking charge on the situation, it was very stressful for a lot of us seeing that, and it sent a lot of us into a panic. When we were initially calm, Going in, because it was going so well in those first half hour, we all did what we needed to do. There was preparations in advance to not have civilians within. Those, unfortunately, did not entirely go to plan. But we made clear, and we have on video, that we were asking them to leave. They did say they wanted to stay. However, we were able to help them decide to get out on their own volition. I held their— I held— The most confrontational one's hand and walked him out, showed him my face, let him know who I— that I was a real person. And that, I think, was the convincing factor for him.

Sarah Barlin: So after Hamilton Hall, after you barricaded Hamilton Hall and, and, and I guess you guys felt kind of comfortable enough to begin, you know, standard practices of living, what was that like? Like, what was it like being in Hamilton Hall after the period of barricading and before the police kind of— before you knew that there would be an imminent sweep?

Speaker 10: So I think on that question, there was always the notion that a sweep was imminent. There was never a moment that we were fully secure in our being there, knowing how it has been happening across the country, knowing how this administration has handled it in the past. There was never a moment of true domestic peace within Hind Hall. With that being said, though, we quickly moved to delegate security tasks of just keeping watch of 2 vantage points, lower and higher. And once we had, you know, people signed up to do those shifts for the following hours, those who were able to and felt confident began to delegate other tasks, including—

Ale Diaz Pizarro: Security.

Speaker 10: Just getting a general layout of the building, starting to assess what was on what floor, what floors were needed, what floors were not needed, as modes of safety, of barricading ourselves in, just having less contingencies, having less floors open, making it as difficult as it could be for us to be entered into. And there was much debate on how to go about that, whether we start with one floor or 2 floors. And then, windows, whether we start with closing floors. And those plans shifted and moved throughout the 20 hours we were in there. No one was asleep. No one— we didn't do it— once we, once we got in there, there were majority of people up throughout. I slept for about 3 hours after I did 2 shifts back-to-back of security. And then I woke up. I was woken up to do a meeting. And that meeting, I walked into, and the room was full. So there were people up.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: Right.

Speaker 10: At all times, strategizing, taking security shifts, taking care of one another, as well. That was a large part of what we were doing in there. And I think that was a crucial step of— we didn't— we never had a moment of, you know, pure icebreakers, sitting down and learning each other's names, because there was anonymity going into it. But I think that making sure we were all feeling OK emotionally and mentally— the physical damage wasn't too bad for any of us quite yet.

Ale Diaz Pizarro: Right.

Speaker 10: That helped us prepare for what happened when the police did eventually come. Those bus rides downtown, I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time. We were just— we were having a good time for a shitty situation. And I think that was because of the building we did in there and the confidence we had in each other, strategizing and seeing that we were all hands on deck for all 20 hours that we were in there.

Sarah Barlin: So you said that you were able to kind of build camaraderie Even though you were— you guys still remained anonymous within the building?

Speaker 10: Yes, we were using encrypted chats going into this. We— the majority of us did not bring devices within for the safety of the group and for ourselves. And once we were in, if we were using different names on the outside, some of us had switched, or some of us began using Different names of different fictional characters we find appealing, you know.

Sarah Barlin: So I'm not sure if, if you're aware, but kind of due to the formation of the NYPD that night, there was no— essentially no press that was able to witness what was going on right outside or inside of Hamilton Hall. And so what, what we're about to talk about is, is important because this isn't particularly documented otherwise. Let's just talk about The— not even when the police first came in, but, but when you knew that they were present outside of the building, can you, can you kind of speak to that?

Speaker 10: Yeah, it was scary. It was scary, because earlier that day, we, we had nerves that there was a potential SWAT or some form of federal agency coming to get us. We had seen photos of snipers in Indiana and Ohio, so— and horseback in Texas. So none of that None of us, I think, had convinced ourselves that there was any sort of— we knew that they would take it as far as they wanted to. So hearing about SWAT, I don't think any of us questioned that. It was more just accepting that. But once that was alleviated and we knew for a fact that around 9:30, 9 o'clock, that the NYPD was at our doors, multiple entrances, I believe, they were trying to— Yeah. get in from. I know when the buses pulled around 116th from 114th to take us downtown, I had a window seat on the left side, and we saw the large black truck that was entering into Hind Hall from Amsterdam Avenue. But our focus was on the front doors. We had done a lot of barricading of different entrances that they were trying to use, so And we knew that the brunt of the force— it quickly became clear that the brunt of the force was— excuse me— at the front doors. So, once that was clear, it was all hands on deck, getting people comfortable with the fact that there were police. We all knew that it was most likely going to happen. It was just— it was an if— or it was a when, not an if, but just realizing that it was happening much quicker than we had anticipated.

David González: I'm sorry.

Speaker 10: After we had— there was a lot of discussion of strategies with people on the outside of how to extend our stay amongst different people with differing levels of authority. So this— the police presence was a shock, because we were having contact of potential extensions, so, of stay under terms of negotiations. So when the police did show up, it was, quite frankly, coming down from a high of potential extension of stay to the imminent reality that we were getting arrested that night. We were scared. There were kids in there, like, true children, who were nevertheless incredibly brave, just making sure we knew what was happening, bracing ourselves physically and mentally. And a big part of that was chanting together up against the barricades. We had quite a few stacked pieces, but the closest to the interior were the—

Georgia: 2.

Speaker 10: were large tables that we all sort of put all of our weight behind in a lunge sort of formation with both hands on, grabbing onto, and just pushing all of our weight against the door. And as we were there and as it became clear that the police were entering, we would just start slamming on them and chanting, as we always had done. And that helped.

Sarah Barlin: So you resi— so when the police came, you resisted? Or what happened? What do you mean, slamming?

Speaker 10: Just having our hands on the table that we were pushing against the door. It was— how it was laid down on the ground, it was like a traditional table. We hadn't flipped it or anything, so the tabletop, we were grabbing from the corner, from the edge, putting— leaning all of our weight onto, like a lunge, as the police started to break through windows, start to use electric saws. To cut through the steel locks. It started to get scary, and I think we all started to fear that. It started to smell like smoke. This was before the flashbangs were used. And we began to chant, to scare them and to assure ourselves, banging on the tables while we could, more for us than anything else, to know that— just to center ourselves in why we were there and know that we all had each other. Thank you.

Sarah Barlin: Yeah, so I saw some brief body cam footage, and the flashbangs or the flash bombs, were you under the impression that those were gunshots? Because to me, that's what they sounded like.

Speaker 10: Yes. I will say personally, I was holding strong on my barricade mentally and physically. I was in the center door, but on the furthest to the right, and on that from the inside. I guess the left-hand door from the outside. And— but from the inside, on my right, the furthest right-hand door was getting— was starting to open more so than the door I was on. And I was closest to it. I was on the corner of the table in the— at the middle door, so I had direct eyesight to that. And they were pushing their shields and spraying water. And we were holding strong, even though it was starting to break down. And you were holding on to the door? And it was almost kind of at a stalemate until I was— we were all facing the doors, but they threw the flash bombs or flashbangs into the back ceiling. So it sounded like— we knew we were getting it from all sides. So for those of us who had been entirely focused on the front doors, I know personally I thought we had police entering from either the basement or the 3rd floor coming down to the lobby and be— opening fire. And we were all facing the front. Um-hmm.

Speaker 14: So the—

Speaker 10: into the back.

David González: Yeah.

Speaker 10: Physical flash. The light explosion was not clear to us. We were facing the opposite direction.

Georgia: Um-hmm.

Speaker 10: So it was, it was a pure sound of gunshots. And at that, in that moment, I dropped, personally, under the table that I was barricading, because I thought they were gunshots. And in dropping, I had turned around. To face the back of the building. And as I turned around, I saw the flashing lights that were, you know, going at the same time as the bangs. So it— the second I started to realize that it was not gunshots, but some other mechanism of just sound, sound, sound, sounding force, the table actually started to go. The barricade on the central door started to go, and I felt it tipping over me. I was in the back of the room. So I got out from under it and just ran to the back of the hall, as— more or less at the same time as the majority of the people who had been barricading, and linked arms and put our hands above our head. And by the second I had sat down, turned around, had my hands on my head, the police had more or less broken through the central door and were probably 95% of the way through, from my side, the right-hand door. So, from the outside, the left door, the one without a ramp. Once they broke through, it was kind of an explosion of the— like a physical push and movement of all of the barricades. And they all sort of froze when they first saw us, just standing there. We were lined up in the back. There were blue shirts and white shirts. They were talking amongst themselves. But it was a moment of pause while we were all sitting there. Majority of us were sitting in the back with our hands up.

David González: Hi.

Speaker 10: or coming towards the back before they started using extreme force in arresting us. The majority of us were lined up, though, in the back with our hands above our head, and those who were not were moving towards to join that line. There was no, no consensus whatsoever on a movement to resist arrest.

Sarah Barlin: So, okay, at this point I think we can I wanted to talk about the confrontation between you and the police officers pretty much during the period of arrests. And so I don't know if you've seen, but President Shafiq sent out an email after or during this entire confrontation, and she said that the NYPD— she thanked the NYPD for their professionalism. And so to that note, can you describe what went on between You all and the police officers?

Speaker 10: So they entered. There was a moment of pause. And then once they started to walk forward, they did so with great speed and—

Sarah Barlin: I'm so sorry. Did they— did they have their guns drawn, by the way?

Speaker 10: No. No. From what I could tell, there was no guns drawn. They were certainly carrying, but they were not— I did not see any guns pointed at any of us or being brandished. So they started moving towards the back wall. I knew— I know that there were a couple of protesters staggered throughout that they also started to congregate around, and they more or less just started pulling us apart.

Sarah Barlin: At this point, were you— you were just— you were not resisting. You guys were sitting in a— can you explain kind of how you guys were reacting at this point while they were trying to pull you guys apart?

Speaker 10: They began coming towards us as we were lined up at the back of the lobby, up against the wall, sitting down. Some of us' arms were Loosely linked, our hands above our heads or on our heads, you know, open palms. There may have been shouts and jeers, but there was no solid movement to resist arrest.

Sarah Barlin: And I mean, just to— just so that kind of the listeners and the world knows, nobody was— can you confirm that nobody occupying Hamilton Hall had any weapons or arms or— Anything like that?

Speaker 10: No, no, no arms. We were all unarmed, all unarmed. We had, in, in terms of hardware, in order to barricade ourselves most effectively, there were tools that could obviously be construed as weapons, but those were all in the hardware room that we had designated before we came down. That was, that was a— I think everyone understood. I don't— I was downstairs while the majority were upstairs. Before they joined us downstairs. But it was clear that nobody had taken a weapon, a potential weapon, which were not— they were brought into the building purely as tools. So none of us were armed. And those potential means of arming ourselves were, were all together in a room where they were. We had, like, a tool checkout sheet, so everything was accounted for. And they were all left in place. No one had grabbed anything to arm themselves. individually. That was clear from the jump.

Sarah Barlin: And so at this point, you're all kind of at the back of the lobby of Hamilton Hall, and your hands are up, your hands are on your head. It's very clear that you are all unarmed and not resisting arrest. Can you kind of explain what happened between you and the officers at this point?

Speaker 10: They started to pull us apart with extreme force. I started to— it was hard to You know, gain an awareness of everything that was going on around me, to all of us. But I was speaking from my personal experience, just the surrounding— the protesters who were surrounding me, they started to yank us apart. There were different interactions with different levels of violence. Some were kicked on limbs, some were kicked in the chest, some were kicked in the face for differing reasons. None of us were armed. And you were in the middle of this? armed. However, none of us decided to resist arrest, so that was a choice that the police made on us they deemed appropriate. Personally, I was sitting with my arms above my head. Someone on my left, a protester who was next to me on my left, was taken first, and he was getting quite brutalized, so I just grabbed onto his chest.

Speaker 14: And?

Speaker 10: His shirt to hold him tight, but they soon pulled him away. And as they did that, they grabbed me. My jacket was zipped, and they grabbed me by the jacket and slammed me face-first into the ground, more or less picked me up, slammed me to the ground, cuffed me. I did not— I put my hands behind my back. They didn't— I knew what was happening, and I let them. But I was on, you know, on my stomach, my face to the ground, with my hands behind my back, zip-tied. And you were handcuffed? So tight that I was— quickly began to lose feeling in my fingers. And I was not alone. I think half of us, by the time we were on the bus, had to get our zip-tie cuffs recut and re-put on, because we were all starting to lose— a vast number of us were losing feeling in our fingers. And that was just on my bus. There were multiple buses of people. So they took me, they slammed me down, cuffed me, zip-tied me, picked me up and slammed me down a couple more times. Just from the back, grabbing my jacket, slamming me to the ground, yelling at me to get up. As the wind was knocked out of me, I was able to turn over eventually. It was very crowded, you know, boots and bodies all around. I was able to turn over. They picked me up by my chest and slammed me down, pulled me up as I was starting to get up on my own, which was difficult, my hands tied behind my back, laying flat on my back, trying to get up. In the midst of the chaos. And they grabbed my arm, and they grabbed another protester's arm who had similarly been arrested, probably a couple of feet from me, and were dragging me out— walking me out, I should say. And as I was being escorted out, there was so much chaos. It was not— there was no clear walkway out. We were getting blocked— the cops were getting blocked by their own men, stepping on others. I had clear visual of one protester who who was screaming they couldn't breathe, and another protester on top of them trying to help amongst the sea of cops. People were yelling and screaming. I personally kind of was at a loss of words within Hamilton Hall as I was getting pulled out. I may— I believe I was one of the first to get— one of the earlier ones to get pulled out of the building and lined up for the buses. So I know there were people behind me, and I can't speak to what happened.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: OK.

Speaker 10: Once I was taken out. But from the jump, it was incredibly violent.

Sarah Barlin: Can you kind of give us examples of the brutalization or violence that ensued between or on behalf of police officers? Because it seems like you guys were really not resisting arrest and therefore seemed to remain calm.

Speaker 10: Yeah, we were trying to stay as calm as possible throughout. No consensus —whatsoever en masse, a decision to resist arrest. We were all coming as quietly as we could as we watched the cops. We watched the cops kicking. That was a large— that was a strong tactic they were using with their boots, kicking limbs, kicking the gut/chest, multiple instances of people kicked in the face. I know they're being treated for concussions right now. Multiple people were taken to the hospital before being booked directly after the arrest for lacerations, broken ankles. I saw several people, once we were in holding, with wrapped wrists and elbows and ankles. I know one person had to go to the hospital to get stitches.

Sarah Barlin: And all those injuries were inflicted by the NYPD, would you say?

Speaker 10: Absolutely, yes. We were all In the initial rush to take Hind Hall, there were, you know, just within the shuffle, bumps and bruises sustained by us. But we quickly assessed amongst ourselves if there were any serious injuries within those 20 hours. And we had people who are more, you know, first-aid savvy amongst us to take care of that. I know someone had a, like, asthma or sort of breathing incident. But at the most moment of— at the highest stress moment beyond— besides the arrest, there were no sustained injuries, and we had ample first aid supplies treating people. So the majority of the injuries seen post-arrest were happening at the arrest, not during the bear— during the taking of Hental and/or the holding of it.

Sarah Barlin: Can you confirm that your— it sounds like your Miranda rights have not— were not read to you. Can you confirm that that's true?

Speaker 10: Yes, on the whole, I don't think anyone's Miranda rights were read as we were arrested. That was a solid joke going around on the bus. We were asking where Miranda was.

Sarah Barlin: This is kind of an interjection, I guess, but can you— do you have an estimate of how many students or how many occupiers there were of Hamilton Hall?

Speaker 10: I know the number of us arrested was somewhere around 60 being held. So just going— I— we never did a full headcount. Centralized, because we were never all together all at once. There were always people on security off doing something that some of us didn't know about. Security was always a concern, even from the inside. And so my guess, my estimate of somewhere around 60 is coming out of the arrest numbers. I did not— I had some knowledge of numbers going in, more as a terms of a personal comfort with going in, knowing that we had—

Speaker 14: Right.

Speaker 10: Numbers, but those numbers were shifting up until 12:30 when we took it. You know, people deciding what roles were appropriate for them. So I can't say going into it I had a fair assumption, a knowledge of how many of us there were. But learning about the arrest number, I think that is a mix of light and red, dark reds. So that's not super reflective of who was occupying Hintaal, but they were— I'm going off Thank you.

Sarah Barlin: I'm not sure if you've kind of caught up on mainstream media yet. Mayor Eric Adams and a journalist at CNN have both made statements that every occupier of Hamilton Hall was, quote, an outside agitator. Can you speak to those claims, basically explaining, like, were the majority of people in Hamilton Hall affiliated with Columbia in some capacity? Like, how do you feel about that outside agitator claim?

Speaker 10: So to answer directly, I will say that my knowledge is that everyone who was in Hinde Hall had been involved with the encampment before the decision to escalate. So they were already considered community members amongst those of us who had been out there. There was no distinction at a personal level between those of us with differing levels of access into Columbia's campus. Everyone was unified. On a personal level, I will say the idea of an outside— all of us being outside agitators is entirely false. The vast majority are current students, if not— well, expulsion is a different thing, but current active CUID holders. And if not, we're alum with active, unexpired IDs. Everyone had a connection to Columbia in one way or another. So—

Sarah Barlin: Yeah.

Speaker 10: And I will say, for those that did not have active CUIDs but were a part of it, they had been a part of it for a long time and had maintained a presence on campus in the encampment. So they were very much community members for us. It's— yeah, no, from my knowledge, and I'm confident in this, there was no invitation for outside agitators to come, quote-unquote, outside agitators.

Georgia: Right.

Speaker 10: People who came who had differing levels of access to campus came independently with their own unique skills. There was no coordinated effort to pull people in. And we were all arrested together, and we were all more or less facing the same disciplinary charges or legal charges, and were held within the same capacity by the police.

Sawyer: All right.

Sarah Barlin: At this point, in what you've told us, you're kind of on the correction buses. Can you Tell us how you all were treated by the kind of criminal justice system going forward until your arraignments.

Speaker 10: So, until our arraignments, police were quite quiet. They knew they were on our turf still. Plenty of press all around, although they were kettled into John Jay. I know they had us— they walked us to 114th Street, where the buses were, and there were plenty of, if not press, just Community members hanging out of their windows with their phones and flashlights. So there was ample witness— witnesses with recording devices happening. So there was not a ton of communication upon initial arrest. We were dishing it more than they were. I know someone dished it enough to make an officer cry and walk off the bus. So there was that. On the way down, we were Continuing to chant, sing, heckle the police on the bus. And it wasn't until we were in— held in 1PP, as a female— I know the men were held in kind of a pen altogether, versus the women, those they deemed female, were held in individual cells with 4 to 5 people in a cell along a corridor.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Right.

Speaker 10: So, there was limited access, but we could, we could certainly hear each other. And once we were in holding is when the law enforcement started further brutalizing us, either verbally. There was, in one PP, multiple women's hijabs, multiple hijabi women's hijabs were removed, with men present in the all-female holding facility. They were being—

Sawyer: Right.

Speaker 10: escorted by men without their hijabs. We were chanting against that the second, the second it was witnessed. We, we were yelling about that. And the police would bark back at us, asking, you know, we would ask for food, and they'd say, don't get arrested. Asking where our stuff is, they'd say, well, you shouldn't have gotten arrested, rubbing in that they're making overtime with our being here, like $1,500 worth of overtime. It was— they weren't— they were They were quite strung out, because we were quite giving it to them. But they were certainly yelling back at us, telling us, you know, we deserved to be there, not at all questioning the efficacy of their arrest or their, their role in that. And, you know, I guess that's their job. But it wasn't until we were being held, until they started verbally assaulting us on multiple fronts. And then there was obviously the hijabi thing.

Sarah Barlin: Yeah. So I'm, I'm really interested in the fact that you were all sent to central booking under the pretense that you all received felony charges by the police officers, when during your arraignments, which I was present for, you were all just charged with misdemeanors. I believe every single one of you so far has been charged with just a misdemeanor and not a felony charge. Can you kind of speak to that, that situation?

Speaker 10: Yeah, that was a clear tactic. The police utilized multiple tactics to separate and scare us once we were within their holding facilities, either 1PP or Central Booking. At 1PP, we were— I can't speak for everybody, but a lot of us, and there were multiple, there were CUNY students in 1PP as well. So from the Columbia side, we were— I know multiple Columbia protesters were handed documents with a list of charges. Mine had 3 counts Felony counts of burglary in the third degree. And these, I learned later from the volunteer lawyers while I was still being held, were police charges. So these were charges that the police had decided to levy upon us, and they were individual. I know some people did not get— some people got different. I think a lot of people got burglary, the felony burglary in the third. However, some people were charged with— And what was the charge? Police charged with assault or hate crime. There was a variety. But we all received Fs. And that sent a chill down our spine quite early on, because that was a risk that we had anticipated, but having that reality was a different story, especially being separated. It wasn't until— that was— we were arrested in 1PP, I'm going to say, we didn't have Clocks, and they were withholding time information from us, as well as food and water. So I'm going to say the arrest began around 9:30. By 1:00— or by 7:45 in the morning, a lot of us had received those papers. So we had been sitting there for a long time not knowing what was going on. We received the papers by 7:00. I received mine at 7:45 in the morning. They have— when they— they have the timestamp on them.

Sawyer: OK.

Speaker 10: them as printed. And my— they began to list felonies. And that was the knowledge we had, I had, up until, I'm going to say, 9:00, maybe more like 5:00 the following day, 5:00 in the afternoon, when I had, in my particular holding cell, had a window to lawyers, because I was close to the courtroom. So this is where they were holding people to be arraigned.

Casey Lamb: Right.

Speaker 10: Where the lawyers would speak to them while they were still within their cells. So they were answering brief questions, and they let us know quickly that charges from the district attorney were starting to come in. That was the main holdup, was receiving papers from Albany. That was what was slowing the lawyers the most, was— in getting us out, was trying to receive as many of the papers as they could. And those papers started to come in. Court closed at 1:00, started to come in.

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Right.

Speaker 10: around 10:30, after court had readjourned after their dinner break. So it was kind of a crush to get as many people out as they could. But before that began, we were informed that they were— the district attorney was charging pretty uniformly, I think entirely uniformly, as misdemeanor trespassing in the second degree misdemeanors for all of us, to my knowledge. So once that was learned, that was a big relief, personally. And I know I had that information much earlier than the majority of the protesters who were in there. And I— they started bringing protesters who were downstairs up to where I was sitting, and I was informing them of the updated legal situation, among other things. I was told that while they were being held throughout the facility in groups ranging from 2 to 5—

Speaker 14: 5.

Speaker 10: 10 of us together, with— intermixed with community members or not, that people were starting to sit with the potential of being in prison for 5 to 10 years. So people were starting to very much worry. That was a— that felony charge was a strong tactic for demoralizing a lot of us. I know when I learned— I didn't realize how heavy the felony was weighing on me personally until I learned it was demoted to a misdemeanor.

David González: Thank you.

Speaker 10: And I felt a large release.

Sarah Barlin: If you think we're ready to kind of talk more about this, less about the arrest and more about the legacy, like, what do you want your legacy to be from this occupation of Hamilton Hall?

Speaker 10: I think the first sign of what we could be or how we might be remembered was when I heard that New York Times had written an article about Hind. Independent of us. We had named— obviously renamed it Hamilton into Hind Hall. But there was— and I could be wrong, I still haven't checked the news— but I was told that New York Times had done a specific write-up on Hind's story. So from there— and that was kind of the morning after we had taken it. So from there, we were all— we are all hopeful that our legacy continues to point to Palestine, whatever we did was not a moment for us to be the heroes, but rather a moment for us to put ourselves at risk on behalf of Gazans or Palestinians who are suffering at the hands of Columbia University's monetary and academic investment in Israel and other—

Georgia: Israel.

Speaker 10: weapons manufacturers that are the main catalyst for what we are seeing in Gaza. So the legacy that we are hoping to leave, I guess, personally, is to show that there is no length that the state will not go to defend its monetary interest in genocide, even if that includes simulating gunfire for 18- to 25-year-olds. And, Helyeh, 18-year-olds who were unarmed in a building, in a campus that they had paid tuition to go to, that there is no level of violence in any mode that will not be used to stifle dissent for genocide. And I think we put ourselves on the line to demonstrate that. None of us were expecting it to go down as it did, but that is what happened. And that, I think, is a personal takeaway for me, as someone who has not had—

Macy Hanslick Behrend: Thank you.

Speaker 10: Much at all contact with law enforcement, that there is— yeah, they don't care. They don't care who you are or where you were. If they see you doing something they deem ineffective to the state's mission of enriching itself off genocide, they will brutalize you and silence you and isolate you and tear you apart from each other and kick you in the teeth, and physically and mentally, and tell— and bark at you as a woman, tell you to bend over. While you're behind bars, as they grab themselves, to just let you know that they think that they're in power. They want you to know that what you did was wrong. But I think all of us have come out of this stronger in our beliefs. So, it didn't work.

Sarah Barlin: Do you have any other comments for WKCR, kind of the world at large?

Speaker 10: To WKCR, thank you. To the world at large, thank you for your solidarity. With us, we've been pointing to Gaza and Palestine whenever we receive compliments that we're brave, because this is frankly the least we can do. What we, what we experienced last night at the hands of the police is a daily, is a daily reality for Gazans in an open-air prison. And that personally was centering in my knowledge that I would be getting out, that this was not my life, that this was a moment of my life. Thank you. This was not a state-sanctioned reality. Thank you for being with us. We feel it. And our experience tonight of— or the previous night of brutality and violence and isolation and verbal degradation has only grown our— strengthened our solidarity with the Palestinians. And we all believe, and we all know that in some way she We are all Palestinians in the eyes of the state, and that is what's keeping us together post this and going forward.

Sarah Barlin: Thank you. This is Sarah Barlin. You just listened to an interview with an occupier of Hamilton Hall. It is 11:17 on Thursday, May 2nd. Thank you so much to this interviewee for joining us for a statement. We appreciate your time. Thank you for tuning in to WKCR. You just listened to an interview conducted by myself, Sarah Barlin, and an occupier of Hamilton Hall, an anonymous interviewee who once again occupied Hamilton Hall here at Columbia University. It is Thursday, May 2nd. It is 1:54 PM. If you're hearing my voice right now, that means that you are tuned in to WKCR FM New York, 89.9 on the dial, and WKCR HD at wkcr.org. Hello.