Arrests made after pro-Palestinian protesters defy NYU's deadline to leave Gould Plaza
GREENWICH VILLAGE, Manhattan (WABC) -- Police made multiple arrests Monday night after pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrating at NYU in Greenwich Village defied orders by the school to disperse.
Students who had set up tents on campus and were protesting at Gould Plaza in front of the school of business, faced a 4 p.m. deadline, imposed by the university, to the leave the area.
NewsCopter 7 was over the campus Monday evening, where protesters remained even after the deadline passed.
An NYU official said they were allowing 50 or so protesters to stay in the tents when another approximately 50 people from the street jumped the barricades and joined them.
The NYPD began making arrests late Monday night.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry said that they received a letter from NYU, with a request to clear out Gould Plaza after "individuals" refused to comply with the repeated requests to disperse.
It comes as Columbia University canceled in-person classes on Monday amid intense pro-Palestinian protests that have now stretched to Day Five.
Meanwhile, at Yale University in Connecticut, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protestors were blocking an intersection and chanting outside of the Schwarzmann Center.
A New Haven, Connecticut, police spokesperson said about 45 protesters were arrested at Yale on Monday morning and charged with misdemeanor trespassing. All were being released on promises to appear in court later.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered over the weekend to demand the university give up its investment in military weapons manufacturers.
Protests have roiled many college campuses since Hamas' deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages.
In response, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, which doesn't distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but says at least two-thirds of the dead are children and women.
The demonstrations on U.S. campuses have tested the line between free speech and inclusivity.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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