NYPD official: Items found at Columbia show protesters were far from benign
Gas masks, knives, ‘Death to America’ pamphlet recovered after dispersing pro-Palestinian students who occupied campus building; Jewish alums: Critics of crackdown ‘a disgrace’
A senior New York Police Department official shared photos on Friday of “tools of agitators” that officers had recovered after clearing a Columbia University building occupied by anti-Israel protesters earlier in the week.
“Gas masks, ear plugs, helmets, goggles, tape, hammers, knives, ropes, and a book on TERRORISM,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry wrote on X, formerly Twitter, adding: “These are not the tools of students protesting, these are the tools of agitators, of people who were working on something nefarious.”
Police cleared some 40 people from Columbia’s Hamilton Hall on Tuesday night after protesters against Israel broke into the building and barricaded themselves inside, and made over 100 arrests when they cleared the campus encampment on Thursday.
“Continue to peacefully and lawfully protest; but know that if you engage in illegal conduct, the NYPD will hold you responsible and hold you accountable — someone has to,” wrote Daughtry.
Appended to Daughtry’s post was video footage of a pamphlet that called on people “from New York to Gaza and across the Turtle Island” — the Indigenous name for North America — to “disrupt/reclaim/destroy [Z]ionist business interests everywhere.”
“Death to Israeli real estate! Death to America!” read the pamphlet, which ended: “Long live the Intifada!”
Pencils, books, laptops, those are the tools of students and what you expect to find on a college campus. But here’s what the NYPD found in Hamilton Hall at Columbia University after we were able to arrest the protestors and agitators for commandeering and barricading themselves… pic.twitter.com/EKQV6nJySu
— NYPD Deputy Commissioner, Operations Kaz Daughtry (@NYPDDaughtry) May 3, 2024
The helmets and goggles mentioned by Daughtry were not tactical gear, but rather swimming goggles and bicycle helmets, respectively. The “book on terrorism” was the Oxford-published “Terrorism: A very brief introduction,” by Charles Townshend, an emeritus professor of security studies at Keele University who has researched Republican insurgencies in Ireland.
The items indicate students had been preparing for clashes with police that could involve batons and tear gas. It was not clear there was any evidence the hammers and knives were intended for purposes other than encampment logistics.
Responding to the NYPD post, the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association slammed criticism of police dispersal of the anti-Israel encampment from within the prestigious New York university’s staff.
“You are a disgrace,” the Jewish group said.
To the irresponsible faculty who cried rivers that NYPD ended the antisemitic hate festival at @Columbia this week. Here's what NYPD found in our school:
"Gas masks, ear plugs, helmets, goggles, tape, hammers, knives, ropes, and a book on TERRORISM. "
You are a disgrace. https://t.co/9ETwe71k2e
— Columbia Jewish Alumni Assoc. (@CU_JewishAlumni) May 3, 2024
Encampments similar to Columbia’s pro-Palestinian “Liberated Zone” have sprung up on university campuses across the United States. The administrations at several universities have called on law enforcement to disperse the encampments, drawing criticism from some staff and faculty for police brutality. Some Jewish groups have criticized university presidents — including Minouche Shafik of Columbia — for not doing enough to police antisemitic speech at pro-Palestinian protests.
Violence between anti- and pro-Israel protesters erupted at the University of California in Los Angeles after the latter tried to forcibly dismantle the encampment following reports that a pro-Israel student had been prevented from entering the campus by pro-Palestinians.
By The New York Times’ estimate, over 2,000 students have been arrested since universities began their crackdown on anti-Israel protests.
The students are protesting university endowments’ investments in companies that the protesters claim “support Israel” as the country continues fighting against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has been engulfed in a humanitarian catastrophe as a result of the war.
The war was sparked on October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and take over 250 hostages, amid sexual violence and other atrocities.
Vowing to dismantle the Palestinian terror group and release the hostages, Israel launched an unprecedented offensive on the Strip, displacing over a million people, as conditions in the enclave approach famine, according to United Nations officials.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 34,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far, a figure that cannot be independently verified and includes some 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
