What began as another attempt to replicate the pro-Hamas encampments cropping up across college campuses quickly devolved into chaos Thursday evening at Brooklyn College, where law enforcement was forced to intervene after activists erected unauthorized tents on campus grounds in blatant defiance of school policy.
According to the New York Police Department, fourteen people were taken into custody after agitators refused to vacate the area despite multiple warnings. The crowd, composed largely of protesters donning keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags, hurled vulgarities and physical resistance at the officers who were trying to restore order.
In video footage obtained by Fox News, demonstrators can be seen swarming officers, yelling obscenities, and resisting dispersal. One clip shows a man being tased as he flailed and screamed—a moment that encapsulated the volatile and reckless energy of the evening.
Another video captured an officer urgently instructing a woman to remove her child from the increasingly dangerous scene. “Get that baby out of here now!” the officer commanded.
Brooklyn College issued a statement explaining the response, emphasizing that the encampments violated clear college policies. “After multiple warnings to take the tents down and disperse, members of CUNY Public Safety and NYPD removed the tents and dispersed the crowd,” the college said. “The safety of our campus community will always be paramount.”
But despite the college’s measured response, activists—many of whom have grown emboldened by a lack of discipline at other institutions—showed little concern for safety, decorum, or the learning environment they were disrupting.
Their tactics echoed what unfolded the day prior at Columbia University, where more than 100 protesters stormed Butler Library, forcing students preparing for finals to evacuate. In that case, police made 80 arrests, and the situation has since garnered national attention.
The events at Brooklyn College are merely the latest installment in a wave of radical campus unrest that is sweeping the nation. What’s billed as “student activism” has in many cases morphed into a full-scale rejection of law, order, and academic purpose. These aren’t peaceful protests—they’re engineered spectacles, designed to provoke confrontation while hiding behind a flimsy banner of political expression.
And as university leaders hesitate, stall, or outright fold to mob pressure, the burden has fallen to local law enforcement to restore basic order—often at great personal and political cost.
