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Video shows how Georgia State police brutally knocked down a professor and handcuffed amid pro-Palestine protest
Protests on US campuses escalate as police in Georgia are accused of using excessive force, resulting in the arrest of a Emory University professor and others.
During the pro-Palestine protest at the Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, the police employed fortuitous force. A professor was knocked on the floor by a US police officer and the other one was holding her legs while handcuffing her with zip ties.
This happened during the demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, which spread to almost 21 campuses around the states, including Ivy League institutions such as Harvard and Yale.
Over 100 individuals at Columbia University were arrested in New York the previous week.
On the same day as the incident at Emory University, the Georgia State Police detained 28 individuals, including including economics professor Caroline Fohlin.
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The knockdown was captured on video and shared by CNN, showing Fohlin questioning the officers’ actions as they are trying to arrest one protester who was lying on the ground.
“what are you doing?,” she asked. One cop came, held her both hands, and tried to push her away.
The cop shouted and asked her, “get on the ground”. Before she could even react, the officer knocks her to the ground and handcuffs her with zip ties. Another officer was holding her back so she can't get up.
The professor was continuously pleasing, “I am a professor”, but both the officer ignored her repeated plea.
The footage shows she was taken away by an Atlanta police officer while she was asking the camera holder, “call the philosophy department officer and tell them of my arrest”
Protestors have condemned the police’s actions as an “act of terrorism”
Thee protest organizers issued a statement accusing, “Georgia State Patrol, Atlanta Police Department, and Emory Police Department all bear responsibility for this overt act of terrorism.”
They vowed to “continue the call for Emory University to completely divest from all programs enabling Israeli apartheid”
Georgia State Police trooper said, “It was a peaceful protest until they started fighting troopers” in a report.
The unrest was not confined to Emory University; Indiana University also witnessed the arrest of 33 protesters who continued their encampment demonstrations despite police warnings. The Indiana University Police Department reported that the demonstrators had been advised to dismantle their structures but did not comply.
A photographer for Fox 7 in Austin, Texas, identified as Carlos, was arrested under the accusation of assaulting an officer, which he denied saying, “they (police) were pushing me, and they said I hit an officer, but I didn't.”
“I was just covering things and they were pushing me. I told them I am from the press. I was hitting nobody.”
According to Reuters, nearly 550 arrests have been made across the states last week.
