As police swarmed pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses across the country this week, officers in the nation’s capital refused to get involved, igniting ire from Republican Congressmembers and raising thorny ethics questions about bringing outside cops to university property.

Fueling part of the controversy are reports that Metropolitan Police supposedly turned down pleas from university administrators to get involved amid escalating protests against the war in Gaza on George Washington University’s Washington, D.C., campus late last week. The move deviated from decisions by other police departments to march on college campuses, disband student demonstrations, and arrest hundreds this week.

The tent encampment covering University Yard, a square area in the center of the George Washington University campus, entered its eighth day on Thursday. Hours after around 20 tents went up in the early morning hours of April 25, the university demanded that protesters disperse and dismantle them.

When the demonstrators refused to leave, the university reached out to metro police to break up the encampment, with President Ellen Granberg and Provost Christopher Bracey calling it an “unauthorized use of university space.”

But metro police refused to send their officers into the campus, fearing the optics of a police crackdown on students less than a mile from the White House, according to the Washington Post.

Police wrote in an email to USA TODAY that the department “stood in support” of the response of campus police, who take “the lead in the response to first amendment demonstrations occurring on GWU grounds.” The department declined to comment on “operational tactics or procedures.”

George Washington officials did not provide additional comment in response to USA TODAY’s request.

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The metro police decision not to get involved presented an opportunity for a political jab from some Republican members of the House Oversight Committee, who visited the encampment on Wednesday to condemn the police department’s refusal to act.

“We expect these encampments to be cleared out,” Committee Chair James Comer said, after walking through a crowd of protesters booing and heckling. In a letter to Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, he and Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx also slammed metro police for refusing to get involved “over fears of public criticism.”

But experts cautioned university administrators to think carefully before involving police in campus protests. Before calling in law enforcement, university administrations should have a crystal clear picture of what’s going on, said Christy Lopez, a professor at Georgetown Law. That level of certainty could be missing from the decisions of some administrations.

“Sometimes it’s just really fuzzy and things are moving quickly, and you need to make sure that you understand what’s going on,” she said. “Sometimes, it can be sort of reckless to the point of almost deliberate” to call in police without the full facts established, she added.

Lopez commended police in the nation’s capital for not getting involved in the protest at George Washington. “We should not have to rely on police departments restraining themselves,” she said. “But as that instance shows, sometimes you have to rely on the police department to show the level of judgment that campus officials may not be showing.”

Almost every recent instance she had seen of police response to student protests could present grounds for a critical incident review of officers’ actions, she said. “I think that every single crackdown that I’ve seen warrants that level of scrutiny,” she added.

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Hundreds arrested at campus protests

The decision made metro police an outlier among other city police departments that sent officers into the chaotic center of campus demonstrations.

The NYPD made its first wave of around 100 arrests on Columbia University’s Manhattan campus in mid-April after it entered campus upon request from university President Minouche Shafik to dismantle a tent encampment. The situation has only escalated since then – on Tuesday night, NYPD officers arrested nearly 300 people at demonstrations at Columbia and the City College of New York.

At a news conference on Wednesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said NYPD carried out the operation at the university’s request. “The request we received in writing could not have been clearer,” he said.

In Austin, police in riot gear, riding horses, and wielding batons and pepper spray descended on protests at the University of Texas campus last week upon the university’s request. Although charges against the 57 people arrested were dropped, officers returned on Monday to arrest nearly 80 more.

In an email to USA TODAY, Austin police said the level of assistance that its officers provided to campus police changed with the dynamics of the situation. At first, officers helped to transport those arrested to jail. More recently, campus police asked Austin officers to assist them in making arrests. After campus police and Texas Department of Public Safety officers decided to disband the protest, “it became apparent that additional resources were needed for officer safety and the safety of those taking part in the demonstration.”

“Moving forward as the demonstrations continue, APD will remain ready to provide assistance to [campus police] if requested,” Austin police said in the email.

Experts say police should build trust with protesters

Lopez said building up a level of trust with protesters by acting with restraint can help law enforcement work effectively in the midst of a protest. “Is there an alternative to just going in and tearing apart an encampment or shutting down a protest? Or can you be more directed and actually figure out who’s causing the problems?” she said.

Either way, law enforcement’s response to the protests could leave a lasting mark on how young people view the ethics of policing, Lopez said. “How the police respond here is going to be as indelibly marked on the political consciousness of youth today, as the police response during the Vietnam War protest was on youth of that era,” she said.

“This is going to define how they think about not just police, but government, about the legitimacy of authority,” she added. “That’s really, really an important thing for police and leaders to be thinking about, is that they’re forging that reality and those perceptions right now.”

Cybele Mayes-Osterman is a breaking news reporter for USA Today. Reach her on email at cmayesosterman@usatoday.com. Follow her on X @CybeleMO.