At least 80 people were arrested Wednesday after pro-Palestinian protesters stormed Columbia University’s Butler Library, prompting helmeted NYPD officers to enter the building and remove the demonstrators.

Videos shared on social media show more than 30 people being escorted out of the library with their hands tied behind their backs, while supporters outside the building chanted “Free Palestine” and cheered on the detained protesters.

It was unclear how many of those taken into custody had been inside the library versus outside during the demonstration. Charges remained pending early Thursday morning.

The protest began hours earlier when dozens of mask-clad demonstrators pushed past campus security, entered the library and hung Palestinian flags and banners inside an ornate reading room. Some scrawled the phrase “Columbia will burn” across framed photos on the walls.

Videos also captured scuffles between demonstrators and campus security at the library’s entrance, as officers tried to block more protesters from entering.

The university's acting president, Claire Shipman, said the protesters who had holed up inside a library reading room were asked repeatedly to show identification and to leave, but they refused. The school then requested the NYPD come in “to assist in securing the building and the safety of our community,” she said in a statement Wednesday evening.

Shipman, in a statement, said two university public safety officers sustained injuries as protesters forced their way into the building. She also described the damage to the library as “disturbing.”

"I walked through the reading room, one of the many jewels of Butler Library, and I saw it defaced and damaged in disturbing ways and with disturbing slogans. Violence and vandalism hijacking a library, none of that has any place on our campus,” she said.

Shipman added that antisemitism, harassment and discrimination would not be tolerated on Columbia’s campus.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, subsequently said officers were entering the campus “to remove individuals who are trespassing.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also denounced the protesters.

“Everyone has the right to peacefully protest,” the Democrat wrote on X. “But violence, vandalism or destruction of property are completely unacceptable.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X that they are examining visa status for “trespassers and vandals” who took over the library.

“Pro-Hamas thugs are no longer welcome in our great nation,” he wrote.

The Trump administration has cracked down on international students and scholars at several American universities who had participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations or criticized Israel over its military action in Gaza. Columbia University scholar Mahmoud Khalil, for example, is a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record who was detained in March over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Wednesday's demonstration and the effort to break it up came the same evening that the U.S. Justice Department announced it had brought hate-crime charges against a man who had been repeatedly arrested at pro-Palestinian demonstrations over the past year, including one held near Columbia. An indictment charged Tarek Bazrouk, 20, with assaulting Jewish people at the demonstrations.

Columbia University in March announced sweeping policy changes related to protests following Trump administration threats to revoke its federal funding.

Among them are a ban on students wearing masks to conceal their identities and a rule that those protesting on campus must present their identification when asked. The school also said it had hired new public safety officers empowered to make arrests on campus.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian student group, said it had occupied part of Butler Library because it believed the university profited from “imperialist violence.”

“Repression breeds resistance — if Columbia escalates repression, the people will continue to escalate disruptions on this campus," the group wrote online.

The federal charges against Bazrouk say he kicked a person in the stomach at a protest near the New York Stock Exchange, stole an Israeli flag and punched someone in the face at a demonstration near Columbia, and punched someone wearing an Israeli flag at another Manhattan protest in January.

Bazrouk's lawyer, Andrew Dalack, said his attorneys “look forward to zealously defending” him.

A magistrate judge said Wednesday that Bazrouk could be released on bail, but that ruling is being challenged by prosecutors. A hearing is scheduled before a federal judge on Tuesday.