Law enforcement in Washington D.C. cleared out the two-week-old anti-Israel tent encampment at George Washington University on Wednesday morning, hours before a scheduled congressional oversight hearing on the situation.
The Metropolitan Police Department cleared out the encampment after the situation escalated and protesters assaulted an officer, police said Wednesday. The police action came just before a 1 p.m. House Oversight Committee, which was subsequently canceled.
“We allowed protesters ample time to leave the area. In total, there were six dispersal announcements before our officers took action. Many complied and left the encampment area. Those who did not comply were arrested,” police commissioner Pamela Smith said at a press conference.
“A total of 33 arrests were made this morning for charges including unlawful entry, which is often called trespassing in other jurisdictions, and assault on a police officer,” she added.
Police officers used pepper spray to engage with additional protesters who flocked to the area when police began moving in. Mayor Muriel Bowser praised the department’s “informed and effective” response to the encampment and emphasized the need for public safety.
“I want to be clear that our responses to demonstrations is always rooted in public safety and constitutional responsibility,” Bowser said.
The House Oversight Committee canceled its hearing on D.C.’s response to the encampment. The hearing had been scheduled after MPD rejected a request from the university’s leaders to clear out the encampment last month. Bowser and Smith were scheduled to testify.
“Following the Metropolitan Police Department finally clearing out the unlawful encampment on GW’s campus, I am very pleased to announce that the hearing with Mayor Bowser has been canceled,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) said in a statement. “I am pleased that the potential Oversight hearing led to swift action by Mayor Bowser and MPD Chief Smith.”
Final exams at the university are proceeding as scheduled and police are maintaining a presence on campus, the school announced. No serious injuries were reported during the police action on Wednesday.
Days earlier, George Washington president Ellen Granberg urged police reinforcements to help resolve the situation and clear out the encampment. From its inception, outside left-wing activists and students from other schools were present at the encampment, as National Review previously reported.
“However, when protesters overrun barriers established to protect the community, vandalize a university statue and flag, surround and intimidate GW students with antisemitic images and hateful rhetoric, chase people out of a public yard based on their perceived beliefs, and ignore, degrade, and push GW Police Officers and university maintenance staff, the protest ceases to be peaceful or productive,” Granberg said. “All of these things have happened at GW in the last five days.”
Several of the lead organizers were suspended for staging the protest. The encampment existed to protest against the university’s financial relationship with companies doing business in Israel and U.S. support for Israel’s ongoing war effort against Hamas terrorists.
Organizers set up the encampment on the main lawn of the university’s Washington, D.C. campus located downtown. At one point they defaced a statue of Washington, the nation’s first president and university namesake, which is positioned in front of the lawn. Later on, they piled up police barricades and took over the street adjacent to the lawn.
At one point, university staff unfurled a towering American flag over a building facing the lawn after activists tore down the stars and stripes hanging in front of the building.