When the protesters broke into the historic Hamilton Hall building. And just a few hours ago, 9 p. M. Tuesday night, officers in riot gear end to that building and swiftly made arrests. Columbia university has, of course, been the epicenter to the propalestinian protests that have now spread to campus. Around the country, hundreds of students have been arrested nationwide, and upcoming commencements are in danger of being canceled. Lets get straight to fox news correspond and rich edson for the latest on that raid at columbia. Hello, rich. Hello, jonathan. Columbia University Says the heightened activity on campus has ended and that the area has been cleared. This past evening, hundreds of new York City Police officers arrested dozens of protesters whod occupied and barricaded themselves in a Columbia University building. Officers scaled a Massive Police vehicle to enter columbias Hamilton Hall from a second floor window and then let out the protesters in zip ties. The University Says early tuesday morning, a group broke into the hall. Some were students, though columbia says they were led by individual ones who are not affiliated with the university. Columbia had threatened to expel students involved in occupying and vandalizing the hall. In a letter to the nypd, University President manu shafiq requested with the utmost regret, she writes that police clear Hamilton Hall and all campus tent encampments. Shafiq says she informed students in the encampments on the west lawn that theyd be suspended if they refused to leave by 2 p. M. Monday. Nearly two weeks ago, the nypd arrested more than 100 protesters. Many were released shortly after and demonstrators pitched new tents. The propalestinian groups have demanded that columbia divest from israel. Jewish students have accused the University Of fostering an antisemitic environment and say they were subjected to harassment on campus through all this. The encampments at columbia lasted about three weeks and began when shafiq and senior columbia administrators testified before a House Committee hearing. House Speaker Mike Johnson and senior republican lawmakers have called on shafiq to resign over what they say is columbias refusal to protect jewish students. Propalestine encampments have grown on campuses across the country. The white house has refused to comment on how individual universities are handling these protests, only to say President Biden respects the right to free expression, but believes protests must be peaceful and lawful. Back in new york, mayor eric adams is scheduled to speak at 9 a. M. On the columbia demonstrations. Jonathan rich i noted that the Press Release from Columbia University in the last couple of hours said this is a quote, we believe that the group that broke into and occupied the building is led by individuals who are not affiliated with the university. And i gather youve been doing some digging into the money trail, etc. , on this. Who is behind this . What have we learned, rich . Well, there are students for justice in palestine, which is a national organization, but it has local chapters and there are other organizations as well. When you look back into the money, its actually sometimes quite difficult. In fact, the foundation for the defense of democracy said that its when you follow the money trail, it gets pretty opaque to look at where the funding comes from. There are theres one liberal group out in new york that has sort of acted as a as as a way to to take donations in front of them to these groups on campus. Also, when it comes to the individual chapters, some of these individual chapters for sjp are financed by school donations, their individual clubs and schools. So it really depends on how they organize themselves locally, but its often quite difficult to figure out who exactly is funding. A lot of the groups that organized some of these events. Yeah, always interesting though, to follow the money trail. Richardson. Thank you so much. Joining us now for hema de gea, Columbia University graduate school of journalism student whos reporting on the protests as part of her classes for huma. Thank you so much for being with us. Explain to us a little of what you witnessed over the last few hours. Yes. So after the protesters occupied Hamilton Hall last night, they were in the Hamilton Hall pretty much all day. They were delivering food to each other. Im pretty sure you guys have reported on that. There are buildings with each other using like a rope and buckets system, getting the food up to the protesters. And they were calling for more visibility about a Palestinian Young girl who died. I would say her name, but i forgot her name at this moment. And i dont want to give the wrong name alive. And then after that, what broke out tonight was that nypd came to arrest students who were at Hamilton Hall and were not allowed to cover anything, but was kind of pushed to the they were pushed away. So observers and press were not allowed to be on site while they were making arrests. And what have you heard from those who were with on the campus at the time that you were pushed back . Have you talked to your fellow students who were there . So i while i was reporting a reporting, once press was pushed out, i was waiting and we were waiting to see what would happen. I was still trying to report, take pictures, audio, video of whats going on in the scene. And then i eventually got in like protesters who were homeless and how some of them ended up coming where i was reporting and i started to speak to them, although they wanted to remain anonymous, i quoted them for my own Classwork Assignments and they told me that it got really violent inside. And some of the things that happened were, okay, im going to list a few things. Im sorry if im rambling, but im basically they said that they said that police were violent. They pushed a protester against a wall. There was two protesters on the concrete ground. Some protesters were not given medical attention and sources said they were also maced and one person fell down the stairs. Theres a video of this. And one source said police tried to separate them and they heard sounds of chainsaws taking apart the barricades. And i heard from the the students inside the Hamilton Hall that the tactic police were using was making students think that they were getting arrested, but they didnt arrest everyone. Now, without without asking you to take sides in terms of the propalestinian protests ,proisraeli, how do you personally feel just about this kind of activity on your University Campus . And i dont mean from a political perspective as to as to whether you are propalestinian, proisraeli or anywhere in between. I mean, how does it feel personally for to see this on your campus . Yeah, i personally i like me speaking right now not as like a journalist, but just as a student and as a human. This not even like me and my Journalist Side of me right now. I do feel like students, no matter what side of the political spectrum of scale there are, that could be proisrael, propalestine, whatever they are. So they should be allowed to peacefully protest on their campus. So seeing whats going on has definitely been interesting to see. But do you feel that they did indeed cross the line as a university clearly felt they did when they broke in . Is the pictures were looking at right now. Excuse me if that initial break in to Hamilton Hall was a line crossed there from peaceful protest to vandalism and destruction of property, i would rather not personally comment on any of that right now just because, like i said, yeah. Yeah. My journalistic integrity. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And i gather, i gather thinking that some of the protesters who were not arrested moved a little north toward city college. What do we know about about that move by the protesters . I would tell you more about that, but i actually have no idea about that. Okay. All right. So what are you are you on campus now . Yes, im currently on campus. And what is the atmosphere like right there . Yeah. So actually, students and observers are still not allowed on campus. The students that were around campus were escorted to their dorm through security and police. The reason im still allowed to be on campus is because i am Student Press and press were given special access facilitated by journalism columbia journalism faculty. But thats pretty much what is going on on campus campus. But even columbia journalism students arent allowed to leave the building. So, yeah, yeah. I wonder for him, obviously this was a protest that caused major disruption, but it was by ultimately within the entire student body, a rather relatively small number of students. What is the reaction been of the majority of students who are seeing classes disrupted, classes moving online, commencement not necessarily canceled as it has been here in l. A. At usc, but certainly people are becoming worried about what effect all of this might have on Commencement Ceremonies. What is the what is the reaction of the majority of students who are not taking a position politically on this . Yeah, i have not spoken to enough people to speak on majority of peoples opinions, but i guess like one of the sources i spoke to today, she was concerned about her graduation, but she also knew that what she was doing was important. And that means protesting. So interesting. Okay. For him, ortega, its been great to talk to you. Thank you for bringing us insights from on campus at Columbia University as we obviously have been talking about, hundreds of nypd officers wearing riot gear mobilized to make the arrests. You see them entering Hamilton Hall, that after they got the go ahead from columbia. Joining us now for some insights on how this operation would have been conducted, former nypd inspector and Fox News Contributor paul mara. Paul, its great to have you with us in these early hours of the morning on the east coast. Im presumably this operates and was not planned and executed over a couple of hours. This was planned over a few days, i would imagine, if not more certainly. And you know, lets not discount the Institutional Knowledge of the nypd. Its the oldest Police Department of its size in the country, the largest in the western hemisphere. And its really seen a lot of this sort of stuff. And those lessons are embedded. So i am sure since the beginning of this, quote unquote, occupy motion on the quad there at columbia, they were gaming out the possibility that they were going to have to move on this and then, of course, once the building was occupied, they had to call an audible and figure out what they were going to do there. At that point, theyre going to switch in to very much an intelligence gathering mode. They have a very, very muscular Intelligence Division now that is able to put together things like schematics of buildings where there is ingress and egress. And the unit that carried it out was led by esu. Thats nypd is version of swat. Theyve seen all this kind of thing before. There was probably more entries than what we just saw. I know everybody sees that entry, that of that rampant into the side of the second floor, but they will likely some other entries as well. So yeah, they knew what they were getting into and thats why i think it was done relatively calmly. You know, we didnt have what appears to be what could have been a very volatile situation. We didnt get it. Yeah. And paul, i was interested then were just i dont know if you were if you were able to hear, but we were talking to the Student Journalist for huma de gea, and she says she listed off some of the things that those inside Hamilton Hall said had happened. A Chain Saw Being used to break down barricades, somebody allegedly falling down the stairs, somebody being pushed up against the wall as she was reading those off to me, pull those list of complaints from the protesters inside Hamilton Hall. I thought, wow, that is that sounds to me like extreme restraint from the nypd and that this was a very nonviolent action that they took. Yeah, very perceptive of you, jonathan. Exactly. This really looks to have been done quite surgically. And if the biggest complaint is that somebody was pushed up against a wall, look, they couldnt wait for this to go bad for there to be images of riots or near riots going on at the scene. It empowers their social media, potentially lawsuits. And this is the kind of thing that a lot of the professional agitators look for, because what happens in these circumstances is they get right out. There are lawyers generally there that work with them. The lawsuits are quickly filed. The city tends to settle, which is a mistake in my estimation. They get millions that money gets distributed to the very groups that are organizing and pushing this stuff, and the cycle continues. So thats the biggest gripe that they have, that they used a chainsaw to cut through some barriers, then i dont think they really have much of a cause of action legally. Yeah, it seems to me that it was carried out very efficiently and very with a great deal of restraint, as i say. But what was also noticeable, i thought paul was the display, not the use of overwhelming force, but the display of overwhelming force in the gathering of the nypd officers at the beginning. And thats presumably partly because they dont know how that crowd will react. So they have to have those hundreds of officers there on standby and they made a point of having them very, very visible. Yeah, thats spot on, jonathan. And you know what . It also is a Prophylactic Move because you go in with overwhelming force. Okay, disproportionate force. Then it has a Chilling Effect on those who might have thought, hey, you know what . Lets fight it out with these cops. We can do it. When you look out, you see a sea of blue people in helmets with batons, tear gas, etc. And then you see the esu and sergie units going into the building like that. You start to say to yourself, were significantly outmanned here. And you know what . Lets not fight this one because were going to lose. So thats a tactic to go in with an overwhelming sense of numbers superiority. They came in with a lot of vehicles. You know, once you saw those buses, you knew they were going to be taking a lot of arrests. They came in with that dinosaur that theyre climbing up there, which is a device and a vehicle. And i frankly, they didnt have in my day, im only out three years, but i never saw that thing. But obviously it was very effective here. But look, this thing was gamed out well. It was well orchestrated. It was wellorganized. But we should recognize something. Also, im immensely proud of the way that they operated in a system thats entirely adversarial to them. The administrators, the faculty, the students. They all are for the most part, hostile to the pd. But this isnt over. And while its great to feel like we can take a victory lap and that the forces of sanity prevailed, we have to remember that, number one, tomorrows may day. A lot of these students, particularly professionals, they identify as communists. Thats the 4th of july for the communist identifiers. Thats number one. Number two, the israelis are going to be going after rafah relatively soon. And i know the Biden Administration is trying to hold that off, but i dont think thats going to succeed. And if you think these people are angry now, why dont we get into the good weather of the summer months . Were up against the dnc and the israelis are doing Clearing Operations in rafah. Then were going to see something. So we should all put our helmets on, because i think this is far from over. Yeah, it is. It is frightening to think what we might witness over the next few months, paul, and also talking of the colombia administration not being particularly friendly to the nypd, as you as you just said, that now, though, asking the nypd to stay on site through commencement, through may 17. So how do you feel the officers of the nypd will feel about that . Well, theyre going to do what theyre told. The one of the great strengths of the nypd as compared to, lets say, some other agencies in and around the city and even in the federal government, i would argue, is that its a paramilitary organization. And at the end of the day, you know, it doesnt matter how talented or what your rank is. If somebody is going to tell you what to do, you got to do it. And so theyll do what theyre told. How thats going to look is the question, you know, because im sure that the people running the opposition here to the nypd cannot wait to characterize them as hostile occupiers, an occupying army, etc. , etc. And so how many are going to put their how are they going to deploy them . You know, thats going to remain to be seen. Im sure theyre going to use minimal force as necessary to meet the real mission that theyre going to be undertaking is to make sure that the occupiers of columbia, the people that were cleared out today, dont regain a foothold. And i hope that columbia, this administration has learned their lesson because the first time they took the arrests, the first night they took 100 arrests, what did they do . They gave them nonsense, summonses, trespass, violation. Its a glorified parking ticket. And then my understanding is they decided to drop all those charges and expunge the record. Thats no way to disincentivize this behavior. The bd knows