NYPD PIONEERED MODERN CRISIS NEGOTIATION, HAS A 100-PERSON STRONG TEAM TO DO IT. WHY WEREN'T THEY USED FOR PROTESTERS AT HAMILTON HALL?

NYPD officers entering Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall through a second-floor window. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.

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The NYPD fired a shot inside Columbia University during its SWAT-team led raid Tuesday night to evict pro-Palestinian protesters barricaded inside, it admitted on Friday.

Tarik Sheppard, the NYPD's chief spokesperson, said the specially-trained tactical officer who fired the shot did not pull the trigger of his safety-less Glock handgun on purpose. 

It was an "accident," Deputy Commissioner Sheppard said during a news conference held to explain the negligent discharge. 

The NYPD also hurled a flash-bang grenade at protesters during the raid, according to body camera video the NYPD released on Thursday. The video captures the raiding team, officers from the Department's elite tactical squad, the Emergency Services Unit, deploying a single 9 banger flash-bang.

Then-NYPD Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly temporarily banned the use of flash-bangs in 2010. Flash bangs are designed to frighten and disorient but can also cause permanent injury or death.  Alberta Spruill, 57, was an innocent woman killed by a flash-bang during a mistaken NYPD raid on her apartment in 2003.

The errant shot and the use of a flash-bang grenade, inside Columbia University, one of America's most prestigious colleges, highlights the lethal risks that necessarily come with using force—even force intended to be the minimum necessary.

Not only could a protester have been killed, a police officer could also have been killed—by so-called "friendly fire."

Luckily no one was hurt by either. Everyone dodged a bullet, literally.

The negligent discharge of a firearm by one of the NYPD's best-trained officers was a grave and potentially deadly error that unleashed news headlines, but an independent review of the raid shows it was only one of at least four errors or deviation from procedures the NYPD's own rules require it to follow whenever it removes people or arrests suspects who barricade themselves inside buildings.

Officers from the NYPD’s elite Emergency Services Unit talking with a suicidal man on the Williamsburg Bridge in 2012. They stopped him from jumping. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.

The first of these was the NYPD's failure to at least attempt a negotiated surrender of the barricaded protesters.

In response to the 1971 Attica Rebellion and several high-profile hostage takings in New York City in the early 1970s, including the thwarted bank robbery that inspired the movie "Dog Day Afternoon," the NYPD pioneered crisis negotiation.

Today, the NYPD's Hostage Negotiation Team is a 100-member strong unit. Its motto: "Talk to me."

Instead of deploying negotiators, the NYPD unleashed ESU—whose specially trained and armed tactical officers led the raid.

The protesters—students, employees and allies—barricaded themselves inside the building, Hamilton Hall, just after midnight last Tuesday, Apr. 30. The action was part of their campaign to get the school to divest from Israel.

21 hours or so after the protesters seized Hamilton Hall, the NYPD rushed in—at the request of Columbia Pres. Nemat "Minouche" Shafik. 

The NYPD required Columbia to put its request in writing. That's what it did the first time the NYPD arrested 108 student protesters there Apr. 18—the event that unleashed hundreds of similar occupation-style, pro-Palestinian protests now spreading across America.

Less than three hours before Tuesday night's NYPD raid, the NYPD had not received a letter from Columbia asking it to arrest the protesters occupying Hamilton Hall.

"Right now there is no timetable. We have no letters from them," NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said during a news conference at NYPD headquarters around 6:00 pm Tuesday evening.

"We are here ready to assist them whenever they need our help," Commissioner Caban added.

The NYPD began staging men and equipment for a raid outside the school an hour later, The Free Lance observed. The NYPD also began blockading streets and sidewalks around the main campus, where the occupied building, Hamilton Hall, is located.

Students and citizens protesting in solidarity with those inside Hamilton Hall gathered at the gates of the university. The NYPD moved in and arrested people who refused a police order to leave the area starting around 8:30 pm. By 9:00 pm the street in front of Hamilton Hall was cleared. The police raid began at 9:05 pm.

That's when a tank-like armored NYPD vehicle with a platform and staircase fitted on top of it—officially, a Lenco Bearcat Elevated Tactics vehicle—drove up Amsterdam Avenue. It drove onto the sidewalk directly in front of Hamilton Hall. The idea was to drive the vehicle up to the building, so that officers could climb into the building through a window from the ramp.

But the Bearcat's driver drove into a bus stop on the sidewalk. The bus stop stopped the Bearcat short of the building. Instead of a second-story window, the vehicle's ramp could only reach a courtyard wall. Police had to back the vehicle up, and try again. They got it right on the second try.

Video captured by a police photographer who was allowed to be on the sidewalk below, showed a two-man ESU breeching team walking up the ramp to a second-story window. As they walked up the ramp, the lead officer un-holsters a handgun equipped with a flashlight and points it through the window.

It was with exactly the same weapon that another ESU officer inside Hamilton Hall mistakenly discharged a shot from minutes later, when the officer attempted to enter a locked office. 

The damaged bus stop remained un-repaired on Saturday.

The NYPD Bearcat stuck on the sidewalk in front of Hamilton Hall after striking a bus stop; the damaged bus stop. Photo credits: JB Nicholas.

It's not clear why the NYPD chose to execute a high-risk maneuver like an elevated entry when they were also simply walking onto the campus.

What is clear is that the maneuver was executed in front of TV cameras broadcasting the spectacle live. The NYPD established an area for credentialed members of the press to witness its operation on Amsterdam Avenue at 116th Street, directly across from the operation. 

Protesters could have watched the operation unfolding from inside the building live on TV or streamed on the Internet. They could have taken action to stop it. For example, they could have opened a window directly above the officers and dumped boiling oil on them—like medieval soldiers defending castles from attackers did.

Allowing the press to live broadcast an unfolding tactical entry was another deviation from standard NYPD operating practice that endangered lives—this time including the lives and safety of its own officers.

The life-or-death stakes inherent in using any force are why the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the F.B.I., and the National Council of Negotiation Associations all agree that when barricaded persons or suspects are not armed and have not hurt anyone negotiation should be tried before using force to extract them.

Sheppard, the NYPD's spokesperson, admitted during Friday's news conference at Police Headquarters that the NYPD did not have any evidence or intelligence the protesters inside Hamilton Hall were armed—and no weapons were found.

"The intel is that there were barricaded individuals, who have been there, for a long time, who dismantled security cameras, and you don't have eyes and ears in there. So yeah, that is intelligence," Deputy Commissioner Sheppard said. "That's why you go prepared for anything."

“Talk to me” is the motto of the NYPD’s Hostage Negotiation Team. Photo credit: screengrab.

In response to an additional emailed inquiry, the NYPD confirmed it did not attempt to negotiate the surrender of the protesters.

“The NYPD was never asked to negotiate on behalf of Columbia University. The president of the university made it very clear that they were in negotiation with the protestors,” the NYPD said.

Its not up to Columbia, a private college, to dictate NYPD action.

The NYPD has its own policy for dealing specifically with barricaded persons, Patrol Guide section 221-14. It is not public. 

The NYPD's general policy governing use of force is public. That policy, Patrol Guide 221-02, requires officers attempt "de-escalation and conflict negotiations techniques."

That's what the Hostage Negotiation Team is for.

When Mayor Eric Adams spoke at a news conference the morning after the raid on May 1, he spoke as if he made the decision to send in the NYPD. Referring to Columbia, he said "They understood it was time to move and the action had to end."

He also thanked Columbia for making "a tough decision. We understood that."

Assistant Chief Carlos Valdez is ESU's Commander Officer. He personally led the NYPD's raid on Hamilton Hall. ESU is responsible for removing barricaded suspects and other persons generally.

"The end result that we always want," Valdez told PIX 11 News four months ago in Dec. 2023, "is for the individual to give himself up and come out safely."

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