Earlier reports on this morning’s New School occupation can be found here.

The New School has released a statement to the media on what it calls this morning’s “break in at 65 Fifth Avenue.” The action was not “a simple political protest,” according to the statement, since the protesters’ “entry into this building was forced, they removed a man who was cleaning the building, took his phone, injured a security officer, and did physical damage to the building.”

In the statement, the New School confirms that it asked the NYPD “to remove and arrest those who were trespassing on our property,” and declares that all New School students involved have been suspended effective immediately.

The New School Free Press, a student newspaper, reports that in addition to the nineteen people arrested inside the building, at least one New School student and one NYU student were “maced and arrested” at about 11:30 this morning. There is no confirmation of the charge that police used tear gas and pepper spray inside 65 Fifth Avenue as they retook the building.

Click “Read the rest of this entry” for afternoon updates.

12:55 pm: The NSFP is now reporting that one of the arrestees was “bleeding from his forehead and somewhere on the side of his head” when he was brought into 100 Centre Street for booking.

1:00 pm: According to the New York Times, video taken at the scene shows that some students tried to leave the building by a side entrance as police retook it. Cops at that door pepper sprayed them and pushed them back inside. The video also reportedly shows police knocking down a man who was demonstrating outside the building.

A police spokesperson denied that the police used tear gas or mace, but “did not,” according to the Times, “address the use of the pepper spray.”

2:15 pm: Mike Edwards, who was tweeting from a New School building with a view of 65 Fifth Avenue this morning, has put up a blogpost examining the way the day’s events unfolded on Twitter.

Bob Kerrey spoke with the NSFP not long ago, and said that a New School committee that is supposed to convene when a protest takes place on campus was not called together this morning. He considered the occupation “an act of vandalism,” he said, not a “political protest.”

The New York Observer has an article on the occupation up. Not much new information, but at least one nice detail: A protester on the street yelling, “From New York to Greece, fuck the police!” 

The New York Times reports that the NYPD has made statements on this morning’s events that appear to be contradicted by video evidence. It quotes the department’s chief spokesperson as saying that it is “untrue that pepper spray [was] used in effectuating the arrests,” and suggesting that protesters were mistaken in their belief that police pushed them back in when they attempted to leave the building through a side entrance — but both incidents, the Times says, are documented on video.

The occupation’s blog claims that “negotiations with the [New School’s] new Provost were in process” when the police stormed the building.

2:30 pm: The Daily News quotes a witness to the morning’s events as saying the cops “shoved [one protester] to the ground and beat his head into the pavement.” It also indicates that the occupiers arrived “prepared with enough food and other supplies to withstand a long siege.”

A Columbia journalism students catalogues some of the more emphatic of this morning’s anti-protester tweets.

An observer with a sense of history provides a link to “On the Poverty of Student Life,” the 1966 Situationist manifesto that the protesters quoted through a bullhorn from the building’s roof this morning.

3:45 pm: The video mentioned in the 1:00 and 2:15 updates is now online. In addition to the incidents mentioned above, it appears to show a police officer walk over to a man yelling “Shame on you!”, spray him in the eyes, knock him to the ground, then walk away as three other officers restrain him.

5:30 pm: The occupation’s blog has put up a response to the statement Bob Kerrey distributed earlier. A post at the New School In Exile website says that “approximately 18 students” participated in the occupation. Another, longer video of the morning’s events has appeared on YouTube. And a Facebook group has been set up to coordinate support for the students arrested today.

6:45 pm: The students behind the occupation have called a solidarity rally for tonight at 10 pm in Union Square, at the south steps.