The NY Times reports:
Scores of police officers wearing helmets and carrying riot gear stormed a New School building at 65 Fifth Avenue around 11 a.m. Friday, arresting 19 protesters who had occupied the building as part a determined protest aimed at the university's president, Bob Kerrey.
"The Police Department was asked to arrest individuals trespassing on the property," said Paul J. Browne, the department's chief spokesman, who said the operation "was done in a very organized, orderly fashion."
However, students at the scene described a tumultuous situation in which protesters were pepper-sprayed before being placed in handcuffs and loaded by police officers into the back of a white van, around 11:30 a.m. Mr. Browne said it was "untrue that pepper spray or mace were used in effectuating the arrests."
Witnesses said that the protesters had sought to leave the building by a side door, but were pushed back and pepper-sprayed. The witnesses said that several students pushed open a door that exited onto 14th Street, and that police officers stationed outside that door applied pepper spray onto the students in the corridor and slammed the door shut.
"The students tried to open the door," said Kristina Monllos, a sophomore at Eugene Lang College, part of the New School, and a reporter covering the scene for the New School Free Press. "When the students pushed the door open, the police sprayed pepper spray inside and pushed the door closed."
Mr. Browne, however, said that if some students believed they were unable to leave, it might have been because they had used a chain to lock themselves inside, which officers then had to cut through.
A videotape shot by a freelancer, Brandon Jourdan, showed about half a dozen police officers standing near the door on 14th Street when it was pushed open from inside. The footage then shows officers shaking cans of pepper spray as they hold the door back, spraying inside the corridor, and then slamming the door shut. The footage showed an officer, a few moments later, lunging toward Mr. Jourdan's camera, before swerving toward a young man standing on the street shouting. In the footage, the officer pushed the man's face and knocked him to the ground before arresting him.
Told about the video, Mr. Browne asked to see the footage.
As senior police officials, firefighters and emergency medical technicians looked on, the police officers surged into the building around 11 a.m., carrying bunches of white plastic handcuffs attached to their belts. Moments later, several were seen leaning over the parapet; the banners that the three dozen or so students occupying the building had hung were removed.
"The New School contacted the Police Department and asked us to eject these individuals for trespassing," said Mr. Browne.
He said the New School had asked the Police Department "to arrest the individuals who had trespassed there." Whoever stole the radio might also face robbery charges, he said.
Officers from the Emergency Service Unit cut the chains and then officers from the Manhattan South Task Force entered the building around 11 a.m., and "began to make arrests in an orderly fashion," Mr. Browne said. He added: "Reports that the police used tear gas or mace are false."
He did not, however, immediately address the use of the pepper spray.
Mr. Browne said that the 19 people arrested -- 15 men and 4 women -- were to be charged with trespassing; he could not immediately say if they were New School students or not.
The students had occupied the building around 5:30 a.m., planning to stage a takeover similar to one carried out at the university in December. A graduate student who spoke to a reporter at 5:55 a.m. from the outside of the building said, "The students just entered the building, and the police are already here."
Mr. Browne, the police spokesman, said the people who occupied the
building ejected a maintenance worker, stole his radio and chained the
doors locked.
Around 7 a.m. several dozen students, standing on the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue, erupted into cheers when several masked people appeared on the roof of 65 Fifth Avenue, waving red and black flags and lifting clenched fists in the air. The students on the roof, draped banners over the side of the building that read, "Kerrey and Murtha resign now!"
Police officers were already on hand, and as the morning went on, the numbers increased until dozens of officers stood on all sides of the building and the streets surrounding the building held mazes of metal barricades and yellow police tape. Students on the sidewalks outside the building said they were members of various groups -- all of whom were disgruntled with the administration.
A woman who identified herself as Alex Johnson, a fourth-year politics major, said she was a spokeswoman for the students inside, and spoke to a reporter by phone from what she said was an undisclosed location. Asked how long the students intended to remain inside the building she said, "As long as they can."
Asked what it would take to make the students to leave voluntarily, she replied, "It would take Kerrey and Murtha resigning."
Among the students watching from across the street was Andy Folk, 21, a junior at Eugene Lang College, studying fiction and philosophy. "I'm here to show solidarity and support," he said. "We and much of the faculty continue to have no confidence in Bob Kerrey." Mr Folk added that he thought Mr. Kerrey wanted to soften the radical legacy of the school.
As senior police officers and fire official arrived on the scene the masked students on the roof used a megaphone to address the crowd below. One of the masked figures read a lengthy critique of capitalism and contemporary life, which a student below identified as an essay, "On the Poverty of Student Life," that originated at the University of Strasbourg.
By 10:30, the part of Fifth Avenue below 14th Street, as well as adjoining side streets, were filled with city vehicles. There were police vans, an emergency services unit truck and a mobile fire department command center and fire department ambulance. Paramedics stood at the ready and police officers, holding what appeared to building plans, huddled together.
A group of police officers, one holding a sledge hammer, then walked toward the building.
Elsewhere, tensions rose shortly before 11, when a crowd of people rallying in support of the students dashed east on 14th Street, pursued by police. Police officers and about 40 protesters faced off on the south side of 14th street. A line of officers advanced toward the protesters, who retreated towards Union Square, some shouting at the officers.
At the same time, on Fifth Avenue, about 70 police officers wearing visor helmets and carrying long plastic shields lined up in front of the main entrance to 65 Fifth Avenue. An officer made a announcement through a megaphone that police officials said was designed to let students know that officers were about to enter the school.
Other officers on horseback patrolled surrounding blocks where, by 11 a.m., more than 100 police vehicles were parked.
The December takeover lasted about 30 hours. Then, students barricaded themselves inside a ground-floor cafeteria at the building, protesting a host of issues, many connected to the administration of the university's president, Bob Kerrey.
The students adopted a list of eight demands including a greater student voice in university affairs and the resignations of Mr. Kerrey, a former senator from Nebraska; James Murtha, the executive vice president; and Robert Millard, treasurer of the board of trustees, who students said was connected to a private security company working in Iraq.
That action ended after negotiations, but a students group calling itself the New School in Exile promised further disruptions if Mr. Kerrey did not accede to their demand to resign by April 1.
"With their demand still unmet as of this date, students have once again reclaimed this neglected, symbolic building which housed the New School for Social Research," student organizers said in a news release on Friday. "On the 75th anniversary of the University in Exile, New School students are reclaiming the tradition of protest and political action that birthed the university and gave it meaning for generations to come."
Thanks to Injustice in Seattle Twitter feed
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