Police arrested nearly 300 people at Columbia University and the City College of New York on Tuesday night, New York City officials said on Wednesday — as Mayor Eric Adams and top NYPD leaders continued to blame “outside agitators” for fueling unrest and spreading terrorist rhetoric.
“It’s despicable that schools would allow another country’s flag to fly in our country,” Adams said at a news conference at the NYPD’s headquarters, referencing a video the department had posted overnight showing members of police brass taking down a Palestinian flag at CCNY and replacing it with the U.S. flag.
“Blame me for being proud to be an American,” said the mayor, who regularly hosts local flag-raising ceremonies for other countries and has compared New York City to various capitals around the world.
Officials said NYPD officers arrested 173 people at CCNY and 109 people at Columbia on Tuesday. At Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus, police cleared a building that had been occupied by students since the previous night as well as a protest encampment on the main quad. Police are charging the arrested protesters with trespassing, criminal mischief and burglary, but have so far declined to provide a breakdown of charges.
Hundreds of NYPD officers entered Columbia’s private property around 9 p.m. on Tuesday, after the university’s President Minouche Shafik asked the department to clear protesters. In a letter to the department, Shafik requested police presence on campus until “at least May 17” — through planned graduation ceremonies — “to maintain order and ensure encampments are not re-established.”
The striking police response marked the second time Columbia officials have called the NYPD onto campus since 1968, when students protested the Vietnam War. Just over two weeks ago, police arrested more than 100 protesters at Columbia in a move that was largely criticized by faculty and students. Legally, the NYPD can only enter Columbia’s private campus if university officials ask it to do so or if officers are responding to a crime in progress.
Adams and police officials again made a well-worn claim, blaming “outside agitators” they said were unaffiliated with the schools for escalating the situation. The NYPD declined to name those whom they called “professional protesters.” Officials also declined to say how many people not affiliated with the school were arrested on Tuesday night.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner said a shift in tactics used by campus protesters signaled that non-student groups were involved in the occupation of the Columbia building. “Students don’t come in the door knowing how to barricade themselves,” she said. “These are all skills that are taught and learned.”
Terrorist rhetoric and tactics have “now become pretty common on college campuses,” Weiner added, saying some protesters wore headbands associated with foreign terrorist organizations. She said terrorist rhetoric is spreading in a way similar to what happened last year, when Osama bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America” went viral on TikTok.
Weiner also said the wife of a man convicted of “material support to terrorism” was at Columbia’s student encampment last week, but declined to name the man or his wife.
The NYPD has monitored roughly 1,100 protests related to the war in Gaza since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, according to NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban. Officials said police encrypted their radios on Tuesday night to prevent anyone listening in from anticipating their strategy.
During the Wednesday news conference, Caban lifted a heavy chain and threw it forcefully on the table in front of him. It was a chain he said protesters used to lock the doors of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall.
“They tried to lock us out,” he said. “But the NYPD … will never be locked out.”
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