Jf IM six. Okay here, we're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app Breaking
news. NYPD has entered the campus at Columbia. Students earlier today had taken
over the Hamilton Building and barricaded themselves inside, at least on the ground floor.
NYPD took a ladder seemed like on a fire truck to enter in on
the second floor of the Hamilton building and I was taking This audio is from
just minutes ago. There's gonna be a sampling of audio of the three major
cable channels, so you'll see a difference in coverage. First, we'll start
with MSNBC, which sets it up as far as the moment that law enforcement
entered the building, and the NYPD had drone operators here who flew drones overhead
to sort of monitor for quite a while before this all began. But now
they're clearly going trying to make an entrance through that window right there at the
corner of one sixteenth and Amsterdam. Just for context, encampments at the University
of Connecticut Yale and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill were cleared out.
About four dozen encampments on college campuses remain across the country, but the sort
of the initial one, the first one, and the one where the situation
is clearly the most tense and has escalated to the highest degree is here in
New York City, at Columbia University uptown in Manhattan, Antonia. I don't
know if you can make this out, but are they trying to speak with
the protesters who've locked themselves inside? Is that what's happening. We can't he
certainly can't hear the officers who are right by that window, but it does
not look like there is dialogue. I can't actually see another person on the
other end of the window, but that's because there is a shade that has
been blocking any visibility into the building all day. So that's some of the
instability the concern here is one thing we do know that happened when they entered
last night around twelve thirty am. The first thing protesters did was wrapped trash
bags around security cameras, and so they may be walking into an unknown whenever
the officers open that window or breach one of the doors. Okay, we
hear some noises. It sounds like they're oh, an officer is going through
the window. The first officer has entered the window. People are screaming on
the street in response. Okay, here they go. So what we're witnessing
is NYPDA officers in full riot gear entering Hamilton Hall on Columbia Universe's campus in
New York City. That think correct, It was not riot gear. They
had riot helmets and that was it. But that's some of MSNBC's coverage.
Let's go to Fox News and this is Senator Ted Cruz who was on I
Guess giving commentary with Sean Hannity, paying roughly eight thousand dollars for student organizers
and activists. That's for about eight hours a week to cause this kind of
dissent. This is money, in massive quantities that are being spent by the
radical left to undermine and tear down America. And what we need, Sean,
we need leaders in the university administrators to say if you do this,
you are expelled. If you're a student, game over, it's done.
We need democrats. Why is Joe Biden terrified of these radicals? You know,
just a few days ago, Joe Biden stood next to AOC while AOC
saluted the protesters at Columbia NYU, and he stood there with a goofy Grid.
It's not just the squad, it is the so called main se stream
of the Democrat Party. And it's because they're terrified of the radicals of their
own base that are anti Semites and sadly are leftists who hate America. You
know, it really is an amazing and all these cops are risking their lives
tonight. They have no ideas. They climb into Hamilton Hall one by one
tonight, they have no idea what is on the other side there. Those
were no idea heroes. Yeah, Senator Cruz, who really appreciate you staying
with us late tonight. Thank you. On this freaky news night that was
Ted Cruz and Sean Hannity on Fox News. We played MSNBC's coverage and here
is CNN's all. This is simultaneous one hundred and fourteenth Street and putting them
on these buses that they've brought in to here. I saw I kind of
three or four. It is not clear how many people are participating in this.
The assumption was there was about several hundred, maybe three hundred or so
in both the encampment and in Hamilton Hall. I'll tell you this all kicked
off two weeks ago when there was a one campman, police came and made
arrest. They arrested one hundred and eight people. Seventy seven zero of those
people were not Columbia students. So I think police are going to be and
Columbia's gonna be looking for that today. Clearly police now control everything inside the
campus. They have moved us the media down to this main gate where they
made entry into the campus, and they are arresting people inside and then bringing
them out another gate just down the way. I see another one, perhaps
two more people who are in cuffs being led to buses right now coming out
of Columbia. So we have a handful of arrests so far, less than
a dozen so far from this side. Anyway, it sounds like there were
some arrests, but tho it sounded like those were protesters who were outside the
gates on the Amsterdam side who were arrested a little earlier tonight. Anderson John
Miller, as you watch this, and we're watching this, this splits in
both on the left of police on the left side of the screen because you're
just joining us entering via barricat through a window into Hamilton Hall from Amsterdam Avenue.
So that ought to give you some I guess, some reference point as
far as how the cable networks are covering it. Less analysis on Fox and
more commentary, CNN giving more analysis, and MSNBC was just more like narrating
what was going on. But if you just tune in Columbia University earlier today
suspended protesters after the encampment talk stall, there were some talks which were going
on. Students and as you heard from other audio, non students had taken
control of Hamilton Hall. They had barricaded the building at least on the first
floor, making law enforcement NYPD enter through the second floor. Presently, they
are making a rests all around the campus. Students are told to shelter in
place. At this point, we do know that Columbia has been suspending protesters,
students, arresting students and non students. That's also essential to highlight regarding
this protests, and we don't necessarily know where it's going to leave from here.
My personal concern was when NYPD entered at night. I don't know all
the logistical issues or concerned, but I was hoping that if they were going
to open into the building, that they would have done it in the daytime,
whether it was less likelihood of their being an escalation beyond the control of
the law enforcement or students there in that moment, going in under the cover
of night. But at this point we do know that NYPD has entered Columbia
University Hamilton Hall. They've been reported dozens of protesters arrested so far. There
are no reports to my knowledge of any violence or skirmishes thus far. But
the evening is still early. And I say this with caution, and we'll
continue to follow this story. When we come back, we'll give you an
update on what happened with USC today and UCLA. USC president met for the
with protesters for the second day in a row. Will give you an update
on that and more. You're listening to later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty. And if there is a general trend in the protests,
I would say that Columbia has gone first in the sense of their escalation,
in the sense of how they have been more active in vocalizing their issues.
West Coast USC UCLA have been behind the curve in that regard. But
if the past is prologue, what has been happening at Columbia will probably happen
at USC and UCLA if they continue on this path. One thing that USC
does have as far as the protesters in that situation that Columbia did not,
there seems to be a more open dialogue. I didn't say there was progress.
I said it was a more open dialogue. And I'm basing that on
the fact that USC president Carol Folt has met with leadership of the protesters.
I don't know who that is specifically, but she's meeting with someone, and
she has met with someone or someone's for the past two days. Well,
students here they're just wrapping up finals and now they're focusing on the big day,
that graduation day, but they don't really know exactly what that will look
like. They hope to learn more today. But I can tell you today
here on campus, things are fairly quiet here after well a couple of weeks
here that the campus has really been shaken up by protesters, which has led
to an increase insecurity. Today, the school is meeting with protesters, as
you mentioned, for the second time, to hopefully come to an agreement.
Well, yesterday Active met with USC's president Carol full asking for what they call
as an emergency campus student dialogue in response to campus protests over the war in
Gaza. A demonstration later happened at the school entrance here on Hoover and Jefferson
Well. Today, both parties are expected to meet as a university is also
expected to release details about what's next week's commencement ceremony will look like. USC
says the ongoing protest force him to make changes to this year's ceremony, but
it's unclear what that will look like for the roughly sixty four one thousand people
expected to attend. Over the weekend, Tommy Trojan, the school's one hundred
year old statue was vandalized. One student's mom, who spoke exclusively to NBC
four, not only witnessed it, but she says she tried her best to
stop it. I saw the video of the vandalism. It was playing this
day. It was not a good look for the protesters. Talked about it
last night. The escalation in that regard, when part of the story is
vandalism or violence or some sort of other escalation, you're making it more difficult.
You're actually negotiating, I would say from a place of weakness you're not
going to endear yourself to the general public that you're not going to have the
moral authority on your side, and I would say the university administration leadership would
be less likely to come to any deal. And honestly, I don't believe
that the University of President Carrol Foult is actually negotiating with the expectation of conceding
anything. I think she knows as well as anyone. If you have a
dialogue, then there's less likely the propensity for violence or further escalation. You've
got to have that dialogue. I don't think that the protesters or the students
are going to get anything that they're asking for, and to the best of
my knowledge, they're asking for divestment. They're asking for ceasing of any type
of financial commitments or connections to anything connected to the Israeli government, any type
of scholarships or student exchanges with israel I. Don't think they're going to get
any of that at all. But the protesters can at least say that there
is an open line of communication. Whether they get to the next step,
I find that highly unlikely, but I would rather see the open line of
communication as much as we criticize usc for how they bungled the valedictorian speech.
This open line of communication makes it less likely that they have a Columbia situation.
That's the first thing in UCLA. UCLA officials alerted students today that access
to Royce Hall and Powell Library at the center of campus, if you know
that, would be limited through Friday. Quote. Alternate locations are being identified
as options for classes taking place in Royce. Instructors whose classrooms are located at
Royce were expected to inform their students about the new temporary class locations. And
weren't UCLA and structors also walking out today? Yeah? Yeah, they were
joining in with the protests and USLA as also Before we came on. They
had also made it clear that anyone involved in the protest would be facing disciplinary
actions. Well again, if you use Columbia University as a guide, Columbia
threatened suspensions. They followed through on that starting today. I know for a
fact that students have been suspended. Don't know about expulsions as of yet,
but given that NYPD has now entered the Hamilton Building on the second floor and
made numerous arrests of presumably folks who would be students, those suspensions, those
expulsions are coming west coast. It's been tamer in nature compared to what we've
seen at Yale, Harvard and obviously Columbia, but that could change. But
again I give credit to USC in the sense of, as long as you're
talking, then there's less likelihood of a further escalation because of any protester who
is serious about what they're doing, they're not going to escalate while there's an
open line of communication and cut off that line of communication. But that all
could change in a heartbeat, because after a certain point, USC is going
to have to say definitively to the protesters, and I think they will sooner
than later. They're going to have to say definitively, we're not going to
give you anything that you're asking for. We may give you immunity in the
sense of if you end the protests now, then we won't expel or further
prosecute those students, but that means you still have to give up the encampments.
You're still going to have to give up the protests, and I don't
know if the protesters are willing to do that. And also the protesters,
they only really have one more piece of leverage, and that would be graduation,
because outside of graduation, there is no reason for any university to not
go ahead and clear out the campus. There's no reason because there's nothing to
protect at that point. But we'll continue to follow this. We are watching
what is happening live right now at Columbia University in New York where NYPD has
I don't want to use word breach. They have entered the building, Hamilton
Hall, on the second floor because students had barricaded themselves inside on the first
floor, and they are in the process of arresting students and any other protesters
who are in that building. And also there is a shelter in place notice
for the campus of Columbia, and we will follow that and see where it
goes from there. The rest of the evening. You're listening to Later with
Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty. I wish I had some
good news to report on behalf of Metro. I really wish I did,
but I don't. I don't know if I ever will in the near future
or even in the distant future. Another day another bad news moment for Metro.
But to be fair, I don't know if what happened today was specifically
the fault of Metro or a failing on the part of Metro. By now,
you've probably heard about the Metro train, the Expo line, the E
line which collided with a USC bus today, and they're varying reports of how
many people who were injured or sent to the hospital. But somewhere between sixteen
and eighteen twenty people were injured and needed medical attention after a USC bus and
a Metro plane Metro train collided earlier this morning. From what I know,
I don't think it has any connection to the protests. This is the second
Metro incident in the USC area in the past two and a half or three
days. That's worthy of mentioning. We are following breaking news from downtown Los
Angeles. A train has struck a bus. Let's get up to Rich breaking
overhead and Sky five with the latest, Rich Glenn lew It's on an exposition
between Normandy and Figure Road. It's an expo it's the Metro Expo line versus
a small transport bus. Here we're hearing at least two patients. We're on
the bus, one minor, one moderate. We're transported Now. As for
the bus, we're hearing as many as nine people are requesting transport for some
sort of minor injury and about fifteen other people that are being assessed. Here
at the scene, you can see the triadge area that's set up here by
La City Fire. This happening just before twelve o'clock today. LAPD is here
on hand to assist the fire department as well as provide some traffic control.
Now, the Metro line in this area, the Expo line will be interrupted
while this operation is happening. Exposition between Vermont and Normal or excuse me,
Figueroa and Normandy will also be blocked off while they are in the process of
assessing patients. Here you see some of them still trying to get off of
the bus or the train itself. Again, this was a small bus that
collided with the Metro Expo line here near usc and they will be assessing patients
for some time. As the latest from Sky five, I'll send it back
to you at Hollywood. To be honest and to be fair, this is
not all that uncommon. If you ride Metro enough, there are days in
which you'll be delayed because some trains somewhere may have hit a car because a
car didn't want to wait and try to rush and fly by the signal and
was either hit or clipped by a train. I can think of two or
three different occasions in which I was a passenger on a train or a train
line leading up to place where someone unfortunately either tried to commit suicide or was
successful at committing suicide. So I'm not going to blame this on Metro,
but i will say this that this is something else that if you were reticent
to get on Metro, if you were unsure, if you were ambivalent about
whether it was something that it was safe to ride, this doesn't help in
that regard. This is not going to say to you that this is what
you would want to worry about from day to day. So this is just
the latest in a string of events which I would say chips away at the
foundation of what public transportation is supposed to be. It's supposed to be safe,
it's supposed to be reliable, it's supposed to be something that we can
depend on on a level where we can get on and not necessarily have to
worry about slamming into a bus, not have to worry about homeless person accosting
us, not have to worry about something bad happening, our lives being put
in danger, someone brandishing a knife, someone who was trying to rob us,
or even worse. These are the things that we all have to contend
with when we're riding Metro. Today is just that latest instant instance. And
no it's not fair because from what we know, it's not the fault of
Metro, but it is something else that we would all have to place on
our minds if we were to choose to ride Metro consistently. It's one more
thing to have to consider. And it's not something which never happens, because
I've experienced it, not necessarily been on the train when it hit a car,
but been on the train line and then your trip is diverted and you
have to get out and then catch a bus and detour to your location,
and it takes another hour to get wherever you're going. These are the things
that if you ride Metro you should know that it's not all that uncommon.
Unfortunately, but today, within the context of all the negative news which is
happening literally daily, sometimes twice daily, sometimes three or four times a week,
that you have to say you know what, I'm just not going to
get on Metro for the foreseeable future because nothing good seems to happen on it.
But the only thing that is consistent in nature is something bad is happening
on it. And in the past week we've had two incidents near usc I
don't think they're connected to the protests. Maybe it's just because it is a
highly congested area that more things are more liable to happen down there. But
after a while, it's more than a coincidence, it's a pattern. Let
me just put it this way. You can not pay my ass to get
on Metro, not at all, under any circumstances. I would love to
report positive news about Metro. I wish I could go back to the days
of making jokes about the green Shirt ambassadors and how Metro was flailing around trying
to find some sort of solution and not spending the money in the right way
to address the correct problem. But since safety is the prevailing issue, safety,
including this collision today, is at the top of everyone's minds, Well,
there's nothing else for me to talk about other than the safety or lack
of safety thereof as it relates to Metro. Yesterday I said that there probably
would be attacked today. I was wrong. I have to admit it.
I was wrong. There was not a metro attack that I know of today.
It was just a major collision in which eighteen people were taken to the
hospital. You're listening to later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six
forty. We started the show tonight with the breaking news of NYPD entering Columbia
University. We wanted to see whether it was going to further escalate. We
want to drop into ceing In's coverage right now. They're speaking to one of
the League Columbia student negotiators on behalf of protesters, peaceful administrators, and the
university thinks that this would discovered to students from calling for the end of the
war in Gaza and the end of the end of Columbia's investment in the companies
that are investing in the genero side of the Teal Singior people. Since we
started our negotiation last last Friday, the university did not deal with this with
this movement as an actual movement, an anti war movement. Instead, they
dealt with it as an internal student discipline matter. They've negotiated with us about
bringing food and blankets to the encampment. They refused to to to acknowledge that
this is actually more than that. This is a nationwide movement. This is
a movement that that asked Colombia to to divest its investments from from the companies
that are fueling the ward and guys that right now. So what I'm feeling
right now, I'm feeling disgraced about it by this institute. When Hamilton Hall
was taken over, whether it was part of, as you say, a
larger anti war movement or an on campus disciplinary matter, what was the expectation
that Columbia would do once a building was seized in, windows were broken and
vandalized. The the the autonomous group decided to take that building when they felt
that the university is not answering their demands, the university is not dealing with
them seriously, and the university is actually just this is the problem I have
with It's not the university's job to make you feel better about whether you're being
taken seriously. You don't get to take the building because you don't feel the
university is handling this in the way that you think it should, in the
sense of it being an anti war movement as opposed to an inter school disciplinary
matter, because that's what it is. Columbia is not going to ask U
C, L, a USC, Harvard, and Yale about what they should
do collectively. They are concerned about their campus. They're concerned about their student
body. They're also concerned about their professors and their property. They're Hamilton Building,
They're they're not going to consult with I think I think they've overplayed their
hand completely, and to think that the university had some sort of obligation to
recognize either your protests or as you describe it, a movement, when it's
you were paying attention. This is one of the student leaders. Acknowledge that
there was vandalism, acknowledge that there was a forcible takeover of a student excuse
me, a building on campus. That is not going to endear you to
the university when you need things from the university. If anything, that's going
to make them less likely, the university less likely to negotiate with you in
good faith. In fact, they're not going to negotiate with you at all.
And if you're just tune in, we're talking about how NYPD has entered
Columbia University. Dozens of protesters have been arrested so far. If you're watching
the televised coverage, there are I would say dozens and dozens of NYPD officers
on campus. They have riot helmets. It's been erroneously reported that they're in
full riot gear. That is not true. They don't have shields, they
are not in a forward position, they're not in an aggressive stance. They're
at this point maintaining control of the campus. Students have been told to shelter
in place. This has not in any way spilled over to the West Coast
campuses in the sense of what's happening or not happening at USC or UCLA UCI.
But I was saying earlier in the hour that what has been happening at
Columbia may spill over to the other schools they followed along a similar path and
trajectory. We were just taking a just a brief survey at the beginning of
the show tonight about how different cable news outlets were covering the issue, and
as you might imagine, it was very, very disparate in nature. But
the overall scene at Columbia, and I think this is a good thing,
seems very calm. NYPD seems very relaxed. They don't seem to be focused
on any group of students. From what I understand, all students not only
have been told to shelter in place, they should not be walking the campus
at this point. So it seems that the campus has been completely locked down
at this point. And it now CNN is reporting that Columbia has asked NYPD
to stay on campus until at least May seventeenth. I assume that's on the
other side of graduation. Let's drop back in see if we get some more
information on that. And really, what Colombia has done in bringing in the
NYPD is to overwhelm the student population with just the sheer presence and numbers of
force. Just being there is going to make a difference. I can imagine
that students will still demonstrate in whatever way that they can. They feel very
strongly about Columbia divesting from supporting what's going on in Gaza, and so I
don't imagine that professional it might look a little different, but I think we're
still going to see students demonstrating. Ar Miguel Marquez still standing by just outside
Columbia University. Miguel I understand you've got some new information. Yeah. NYPD
just briefed us a short time ago here on one fourteen. They say it's
done. There is Hamilton Hall has been cleared and is secured. The encampments
that was out there for the last couple of weeks, that too has been
cleared. The only thing out there right now are tents and their personal possessions.
But everybody that didn't want to leave and didn't want to leave the campus
was arrested. They also say there was no reports of anybody resisting arrest.
There were no reports of anyone being injured as well. This is now so
we've come down to Amsterdam Avenue. We can see all the police officers who
are protecting this so that the buses bringing out the last few people who were
arrested can get out. There are protesters behind us. There are also on
the other side of Amsterdam Avenue. This is interesting as well. So this
is on j Hall, just on the corner of one fourteen and Amsterdam and
you can see all the individuals hanging out their windows just watching what's going on
out here. Hamilton Hall is just up the street here another block, and
that is now secure. There were reports that there was smoke off the top
of the Hamilton Hall earlier. Police say that that's not true. There were
people who claimed that they were using a tear gas. Police say that is
not true. They did use flash bang grenades. They said. When they
went into Hamilton Hall, the doors were barricaded with tables with chairs with soda
machines. They used the flash bangs to distract whoever was in there, and
then they were able to open up those doors and get get more officers in
to clear out and check and then clear out the entire hall. But at
this point, when this start started around nine pm, it's done. They
the police will stay as you can hear has complete control of the campus.
Columbia University. They say that the property the campus has been cleared. There
are no protesters on campus in the sense of the encampments. The encampments have
been deserted. There have been a number of arrests, and the university has
asked NYPD to stay on campus through May seventeenth. Not to get ahead of
myself, but that effectively would be the end of the protests on Columbia University's
campuses. We will continue to watch that and see if there's any spillover here.
Locally, it's later with Mo Kelly k IF I am six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, untangling the mess until it makes sense.
KS. I'm KOST HD two, Los Angeles, Orange County, Live
everywhere on the Art Radio app.