CBS 6 speaks with New Paltz student hurt in college protests

In the last two weeks, more than 2,000 people have been arrested during Pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the U.S.

The string of protests started at Columbia University back on April 17th and spread like wildfire.

FULL INTERVIEW BELOW:

This morning, we have some new video out of SUNY New Paltz, where some students arrested overnight after refusing to disperse.

We spoke with a student who was hurt in all the chaos.

Jackie Conley, a junior at the college, says she was hit by a state trooper while peacefully protesting.

They pulled me. They yanked me. And I was on the ground, and it was at that point that the boot of one of the state troopers who did not have any sort of identification on them, no name, no number, went right into my mouth, and I could just taste metallic.

An email from College President Darrell Wheeler at 10:20 p.m., said in part, "the tents must be taken down before we can move forward."

University representatives spoke with campus demonstrators multiple times today and offered amnesty and dialogue in an ongoing process to address their demands, on condition that their encampment be completely and peacefully dismantled by 7 p.m. today. We then extended that offer until 9 p.m. so that negotiations could continue. The demonstrators have neither dispersed nor indicated an intention to do so. We are now initiating removal of the encampment by police. We implore demonstrators to be cooperative and help law enforcement professionals mitigate risk of injury or arrest. Out of an abundance of caution, we are locking down buildings in the vicinity of the encampment and ask all members of our community, and particularly students in nearby residence halls, to remain indoors and/or stay away from the area until this action concludes. It is not lost on me that this episode will have deep and lasting impact on this campus community. I’d like to be as clear as possible about how we have worked to avoid this outcome, and why we determined it was necessary to proceed in this way.