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Columbia Students Circle Encampment, Defying Suspension Threat; Police Arrest Protesters At University Of Texas At Austin; Columbia Protesters: We Will Not Be Moved By Intimidation Tactics. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired April 29, 2024 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:01:40]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We are following breaking news right now at multiple college campuses around the country. Right now, Columbia University in a tense standoff. Earlier today, school officials gave pro-Palestinian protesters a 2 PM Eastern deadline to leave their encampment or face suspension.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN HOST: You're looking at images from earlier today on Columbia University's campus. The protesters there at Columbia, they held a vote, they rejected that ultimatum from university administrators. They are now encircling the camp and there is a big question, how will the university respond.

CNN's Omar Jimenez has made his way onto Columbia University's campus. So Omar, what are you seeing and what are the students telling you?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: Yes. So right now we've been walking around to different parts of the campus. And what we're seeing right here, this is the entrance to the encampment right here. Faculty have actually come over here and locked arms at the entrance of the encampment here.

We spoke to one of the professors earlier and he told us that they did not think that the students here should be suspended merely for protest. In fact, to use his words, he believed the university was criminalizing protest after, of course, referencing when the NYPD was sent in, in the initial phases of this.

I also want to bring in, because obviously students have been negotiating with the university throughout all of it, I want to bring in Mahmoud Khalil. Thank you so much for taking the time. I know you have been speaking to the university, trying to negotiate on behalf of the encampment. Are you guys going to listen to the university and leave the encampment here?

MAHMOUD KHALIL, LEAD NEGOTIATOR ON BEHALF OF COLUMBIA PROTESTERS: Of course not. The university is the one who should listen to us. They should listen to their student body who are demanding to end their investment in the war that's happening in Palestine. Our demands are clear. Our demands are regarding divestment from the Israeli occupation, the companies that are profiting and contributing to the genocide of our people.

Again, the university, once again, they are so stubborn in listening to their students. They're treating this matter as a disciplinary matter. They're not treating this as an anti-war movement. An anti-war movement that actually gathered thousands of students here, that actually sparked thousands of students across the United States.

JIMENEZ: And so when that 2 PM deadline came, obviously we're seeing the encircling protests, what happened leading up to the 2 PM deadline? I understand there was a vote leading into it. And then how did this protest begin to unfold, the one that we're seeing right now?

KHALIL: Of course. So the university, this morning, they sent notices to these students that they should disperse by 2 PM, otherwise they will face suspension and maybe expulsion. Thinking that this threatening tactic will stop these students from being here, the university does not understand that this is nothing compared to what's happening to the people of Gaza. All the students are well aware of this and they're willing to take the risk until Columbia divests.

JIMENEZ: And what do you say to the folks that, look, there have been many Jewish students we've spoken to who have said that the encampment just has not created an environment where they feel safe here on campus, so much so to the point that they've gone home. What do you say to those folks who say your encampment has created an unsafe environment here?

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KHALIL: This encampment, again, is a movement for social justice, for equality, for liberation. Our Jewish brothers and sisters are part of this movement, in fact, are an integral part of this movement. And we believe that the liberation of Palestine and the Jewish people are intertwined and they go hand in hand, and not kind of anti-Semitic.

This is kind of the rhetoric that some politicians in this country use to crack down on such movements.

JIMENEZ: And, look, to this point, the university came out this moment - this morning and said, we are not going to divest in Israel. How far are you all willing to go here on campus?

KHALIL: We're going to go as far as we need to, to pressure the university from the - to pressure the university to divest from the occupation. This is up to the group, to the leadership of the group, to decide how far they will go. But now it's clear that the students will remain here. They will stay here until they achieve their demands.

JIMENEZ: Before I let you go, have you received notification from the university that people are actually being suspended right now already?

KHALIL: Only this morning. We received only one notice from the university. The students here, they were handed these notifications. I'm not a participant inside the encampment. I'm more of their representative outside of the encampment, just in case the university decides to close this encampment.

JIMENEZ: Well, I appreciate you taking the time. For those who don't know, Mahmoud has been coming out here and soft of, as he said, acting as a student representative here. We talked a little bit about the anti-Semitism that some Jewish students have faced here on campus. It's something that the university has pushed and said that it is a situation that they've dealt with.

The president of the university has even called that dynamic very tragic. But as you heard from him and as we have seen as well, there also have been Jewish students who have taken part in some of these protests. As you can see, we've showed some of the faculty that have linked arms at the encampment as well.

You see the circling of these protesters, many of whom were actually inside the encampment prior to this. So, obviously, this is a situation that is continuing to develop this afternoon. Again, well past that initial 2 PM deadline.

KEILAR: All right. Let's go now - well, we're watching these pictures at the University of Texas at Austin, where you see protesters who are trying to encircle an encampment there and resist as police are trying to stop them from establishing an encampment. They're being arrested by law enforcement there.

We have Chief Ramsey with us to talk a little bit about what we're seeing here. This is - according to a state senator, Chief, the university had said that they really wanted to avoid there being some permanent encampment. And what we have seen here, and it's hard to see because there are so many people, is that there was a very small encampment that was being set up. This is in the area where commencement is going to take place.

But tell us about what you see happening here, especially in light of what happened last week where there were dozens of arrests and yet all charges were dropped and the university actually backpedaled and ended up allowing all of the students who were arrested back on campus.

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, first of all, as far as the encampments go - it may start off small, but I guarantee you they grow in size. And so the sooner you disassemble the encampments, the better off you are because it becomes more difficult over time. You're already seeing in Austin some of the problems they're having in trying to arrest some of the demonstrators that are resisting.

So I think it's really wise to try not to let the encampments get started to begin with, so that's what you're basically seeing now in Austin. Of course, Columbia, you have a very large encampment there now. I don't know what's going to take place, but I'm sure that at some point in time, the university will request police to come in and clear that as well.

MARQUARDT: Chief Ramsey, stay with us.

I want to go straight to our Ed Lavandera, who's on the campus of UT at Austin. Ed, it does appear like things have escalated in the past few moments. We've seen more arrests. We can see those pink T-shirts of what I believe are medics who appear to be treating some of those protesters. What are you seeing?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we've seen a couple of times where medics have gone inside the encircled area and pulled some people out. But we have also now seen state troopers go in and starting to forcibly remove some of the protesters. By our count and it's a rough estimate at this point, so we're in the process of trying to gather this, but we think we've seen about at least six different protesters that have been taken into custody.

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And the way it's kind of playing out here, Alex, is that as the state troopers have encircled this encampment, they are clearly like going through and isolating individual people. And then there's a group of four or five, six officers that will go in and specifically grab one person and pull them out.

So suspecting that these are probably people they suspect of being ringleaders or people who they believe are agitating others inside of the encampment area. And that's kind of the operation and the mode that we've seen the officers kind of going in and slowly removing people. They've been also going around this area, this small encampment, which is, like, I don't want to estimate the number of people in there, but it's - I can imagine it's more than a hundred people inside the area that they're describing as a liberated zone here in the South Mall of the University of Texas. And there are a handful of tents, but these officers have also been going through removing tables that they were kind of using as a barricade, as a wall to protect their enclosure.

And many of these protesters are locked in arms. They've been - they're now sitting down on the ground. And here you see another group of officers making their way back inside the circle here. These are some of the officers that have been slowly removing each individual protester.

There's another one that we see is in custody now. So kind of just a slow operation of taking people into custody one by one, it appears like, at least for the time being. And that is the scene that we've seen unfold here for the last hour or so, Alex.

KEILAR: I mean, Ed, is this - I think we have to think back to last week where you had arrests. And I wonder if you're observing anything different today compared to how last week was handled. Does it appear different to you? How law enforcement is reacting?

LAVANDERA: Well, it's different in the sense that last week the protesters were on the move. They were moving from one part of campus and trying to get into this particular area. What is different today is that the protesters and in a way that kind of I think perhaps caught a lot of people off guard.

They were in this area of the campus on the South Mall kind of doing very quiet poetry readings. There was some artwork sessions that were going on, people making protest signs and that sort of thing. So it had the air of just being a very peaceful kind of calm situation.

And about 100 yards away, there was a group of professors that were holding a silent vigil. And then as soon as that silent vigil broke up, these protesters appeared to quickly scramble and set up this round barricade using the folding tables that have been brought out here for what had been described as an educational time or an educational protest, if you will, and also the number of the tents that you see inside the circle there.

So this situation is different from last week, Brianna, in the sense that this is one focused and one fixed area where the protest is taking place. What we saw last week was a situation where there were people kind of moving. It was much, much larger in terms of the numbers of people who were here on this campus.

This is an area that is very small compared to what we saw last week and also compared just to the university as a whole. And then the state troopers that have encircled this encampment. This is the only area where we're seeing any kind of - this kind of activity taking place right now.

MARQUARDT: So Ed, your photographer's shot is very helpful right now because now we can see how big that encampment is in the middle of that campus, where you see what appears to be a relatively small gathering, not that huge, of protesters there in the middle that have been completely encircled by those state troopers. Some facing inwards towards the protesters, some facing outwards to keep others like the journalists and other spectators that we've seen away.

Ed Lavandera, I want you to stay with us as we bring in CNN's Josh Campbell, who is not only our in-house security expert, but also, I believe, an alum of UT.

Josh, when you look at this scene, where you have multiple law enforcement agencies, we now have a better sense of the size of this encampment. We've seen a handful of arrests, Ed Lavandera put it at around half a dozen, he believes. What do you make of what we're looking at and what we might be able to expect in the coming moments?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is certainly an escalation by law enforcement there at UT and this is multiple agencies we're seeing, both UTPD or the campus police, Austin Police, as well as the Texas State Troopers that are there in their crowd control gear.

Now, this is much more organized, I will say, than the incident that we saw last week on the campus of UT, which was a lot more confrontational, that we obviously saw over 60 people that were arrested there during those skirmishes.

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But as we've been reporting on these various incidents at colleges across the campus, it has come down to law enforcement called upon by these universities in order to remove trespassers from their property. And we've been reporting, as these things kicked off, that regardless of where one falls on this ongoing debate over the Israel-Hamas war, that there's no First Amendment right in the U.S. to protest on private property. And when the university says, we want this group dispersed, that then comes down to law enforcement to try to do that.

Obviously, the hope is that that would be done in a way that is not - that doesn't increase tensions, that opts for de-escalation. What we saw just a short time ago, as Ed was reporting there on the scene, is that the first group of officers to move in were local police who essentially moved to disassemble this makeshift camp.

That group that you're seeing there right now on the ground, they were surrounded by various tables that they had set up and other items that were essentially encircling them. We saw the police move in, pull those items out. And we saw, as you mentioned, about half a dozen people taken away.

We don't know if they were placed under arrest or simply detained. But what we can expect right now by this law enforcement presence is that, obviously, their goal is to try to get the group to leave on their own. But if they don't, we will then see likely law enforcement then move in to try to just detain individuals one by one.

We see some of the officers there with those plastic what they call flex cuffs. Those are used. We've seen a lot of those then brought into that area, essentially a way to restrain individuals once you actually detain them. But, again, this appears to be much more coordinated of an effort than we've seen, than we saw last week and at other colleges as well.

And as Ed Lavandera was mentioning, and Ed is an alum of UT as well, this place where this is happening is perhaps one of the most iconic spots at the UT campus. You can see in the background there, the Texas State Capitol. Behind the camera is the iconic UT Tower. This is the area where commencement graduations take place.

And we know, obviously, what university officials had feared there was that this camp would then continue to grow. That could potentially impact, the upcoming commencement ceremony. So it appears that law enforcement is certainly trying to move in quickly to try to dismantle that.

The final point I'll make is that we've seen in Texas a much different posture than we've seen in other areas where law enforcement have focused on de-escalation. It's worth pointing out that after the incident last week at UT Austin, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott came out very forcefully, essentially saying all of these protesters need to end up in jail.

So, again, kind of a different approach here in Austin than we've seen at some other universities. And, of course, the hope is that if authorities do decide to then move in, that this happens peacefully. But certainly it's an escalation we're seeing on the campus.

KEILAR: Yes. They did end up in jail last week, almost 60 of them. But then all of the charges, which were entirely of trespassing, were dropped. And even the university officials backtracking, they were going to bar them from campus. Then they allowed them back on for academic reasons, for finals, for studying. And then they decided to let them back onto campus for any reason.

So you're seeing a sort of evolution as they're trying to figure out and feel their way how to deal with these protests there at UT Austin between the campus officials and certainly the governor as well.

Thank you so much for that, Josh. We're going to get in a quick break as we watch this protest at the University of Texas at Austin. That is water being sprayed on the protest, it appears. It's not a cool day in Austin, by the way. With the heat index, you're looking at almost 90 degrees, so it's a tough situation out there all around. We'll be right back.

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KEILAR: All right. These are pictures from moments ago as we are seeing an arrest at the University of Texas at Austin. This is one of several arrests that we have been watching from state and local police who are there on the campus as student protesters and perhaps some from outside of the campus community. That was the case last week when there were protests and arrests formed an encampment there at a key part of the campus.

So this is happening as we speak, but these particular pictures are just from moments ago as we are following really some turmoil on college campuses around the country.

MARQUARDT: It's not just happening in Austin. We have seen similar protests, of course, all across the country from California to here in Washington, D.C., but perhaps one of the biggest is taking place today at Columbia University where school administrators gave a deadline almost an hour and a half ago for students to vacate the encampment in the middle of campus.

Students said that they would not be leaving. They voted and announced that they were not leaving that encampment. Miguel Marquez has been on the scene for the past few hours. Miguel, last time we spoke, you noted the arrival of the NYPD. We saw barricades surrounding the outside of the campus. What are you seeing now?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think what police and the university are trying to do right now is raise the heat on those protesters in the middle, in the - on the lawn, the great lawn in the center of Columbia University. The entire university is locked off.

As soon as that call went out that at 2 PM protesters had a choice, they could either leave the encampment or possibly face suspension at some point. It's not clear that the university is going to move in immediately, but they called for a protest outside the campus, and that's where we are now, and that's what I want to show you if we can get through here.

It's several dozen people. It's not a huge protest. It's been out here for a couple of hours. I want to give you a sense of what it looks like.

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This is the main gate - close to the main of Columbia right here and - where students would normally be able to get all the way through to the other side of campus. This is closed down and the gates - there are these gates set up around other parts of the campus where students and others can actually get in, where it is controlled and they have to present their IDs and they have to be bona fide students to get into campus.

We did see one arrest here. There was a woman who was standing up - I'm going to show you, she was standing up on one of these posts here and she refused to follow police orders. Police arrested her - it's not (INAUDIBLE) tried to get a sense of who she was. She was - they picked her up and moved her into a police van very quickly. It looked like she may have been a professor.

One thing we do see happening here is we have the pro-Palestinian protesters outside who are supporting the Palestinian protesters who are on the campus about 300 feet away from where we're standing, but you also have pro-Israeli protesters who are coming up here as well, engaging them.

So it is - the tension is growing and police are here in fairly small numbers. They've set up barricades now to protect basically all of the entrances to Columbia. But it looks like it's now - the next move is on the protesters' side and on the university. They will see how long the protesters will remain in that encampment inside Columbia. And then Columbia University, two weeks ago, they had the NYPD come in and remove an encampment. That then kicked off this reaction that we've seen across the country and around the world.

And so I think the university has already said that they are reluctant to employ that again, but we will have to see. The next couple of days are probably going to be tense. Back to you guys.

KEILAR: All right. Miguel, thank you so much for that. We'll be keeping an eye, obviously. This is a critical day at Columbia as that ultimatum was given to students there that they have to get out of that encampment and disperse or face suspension. And there are so many students who have chosen not to comply with that, so we'll see how the university is going to proceed here.

MARQUARDT: For the time being, it does not look like those students on that - in that quad, in that encampment are going anywhere. I want to discuss this further with Jacob Schmeltz, who is a Jewish student at Columbia University.

Jacob, thank you so much for joining us.

We should note that you are not on campus today. I believe you're one of a number of Jewish students who have decided to leave because of threats over the past - threats and fears of violence over the past few weeks.

And I want to talk about that because we just heard moments ago from some of the students representing that encampment. They gave a press conference in which they said, protesters have been entirely peaceful. And I wonder if that has been your experience, and if you've been able to differentiate between those protesters, the student protesters on campus, and those who are perhaps outside - agitators outside of campus.

JACOB SCHMELTZ, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY JEWISH STUDENT: Thank you so much for having me on. It's definitely been very difficult to tell who exactly is on campus, who exactly is not on campus. The line of what is on campus and what is off campus has been very porous.

But what I can say when these demonstrators are saying things such as, we love Hamas, we are Hamas, globalize the intifada, let's strike Tel Aviv, when Jewish students who are simply trying to go back to their - go to class, go to their dorms, go to their dining halls, are told to go kill themselves, are called racial slurs, I would not characterize these as peaceful demonstrations.

KEILAR: And so you're - when you talk about that, there's this distinction we've heard from other students about the outside and the inside, right? And we see the officials on campus really trying to basically lock down the campus to make sure that people are not coming in from the outside. How are you seeing it, the internal debate that is happening?

SCHMELTZ: Well, I think inside campus, there has been lots of instances of anti-Semitism. I've had a friend who's had rocks thrown at him, friends who have had water thrown at them, people who have been confronted, not because they are trying to go engage with the demonstrators, but simply because they are trying to mind their own business. This is happening within the borders of campus.

MARQUARDT: Jacob, what do you make of the participation by Jewish students within the protest? I mean, at the outset of Passover, we saw some Seders in the encampment. Our colleague Omar Jimenez on campus just spoke moments ago with a spokesman, Mahmoud Khalil, who said that our Jewish brothers and sisters have been integral to this movement. He called it a movement for social justice. So what do you make of the Jewish participation in these protests?

SCHMELTZ: So I will say when 90 percent of American Jews see Israel as their ancestral homeland and feel a close connection to Israel, when these demonstrators at the encampment have made it clear that Zionists are not welcome, this is extremely offensive to most Jewish students on campus.