CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST 31 COLUMBIA UNIVERSTY PROTESTERS
CHARGES STAND AGAINST 15 PROTESTERS WHO OCCUPIED HAMILTON HALL, WHICH THEY RENAMED “HIND’S HALL” AFTER PALESTINIAN GIRL KILLED BY ISRAEL
Pro-Palestinian protest camp Columbia University Apr. 30, 2024. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
June 20, 2024
This is a developing report. Check back for updates. Last updated 9:52 pm.
Prosecutors dropped criminal charges against 31 of the 46 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested for occupying a Columbia University building on Thursday.
"All these matters are dismissed and sealed in the interest of justice," Judge Kevin McGrath announced during an afternoon court hearing attended by the defendants and dozens of their supporters.
Many wore keffiyeh scarves inside the courtroom, an iconic symbol of Palestinian resistance.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement he was dismissing the charges because not one of the 31 protesters had criminal records, they were all either students or staff, there was no proof they injured police or damaged property and they would face punishment in school disciplinary proceedings, including suspension or expulsion.
Students at Columbia and dozens of supporters occupied Columbia's quad to protest what they call Israel's on-going genocide against the Palestinian people two months ago. They demanded the hallowed university divest from Israel.
Hours after Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, rejected their demand to divest, dozens of students and handful of other supporters barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall on Apr. 30. They renamed it “Hind’s Hall,” in honor of a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in the Gaza Strip by Israel.
Hamilton Hall was famously occupied by students protesting the Vietnam War in 1968.
Previsouly, Pres. Shafik agreed with criticism from Republican representatives during a Congressional hearing that the protests were “anti-semetic.” She vowed to discipline students and fire professors who expressed criticism of Israel. The Free Lance’s editoral section called it “the most appalling and shamefully un-American political spectacle since the 1954 Army-McCarthy Hearings into alleged Communists and ‘subversives.’”
Pres. Shafik responded by requesting the NYPD arrest the protesters. About 20 hours after the occupation began, an NYPD SWAT team broke into the building through a second floor window. All inside were charged with third degree trespass, a misdemeanor, based on an affidavit from a school official who alleged they did not have permission to be in the building.
In a highly-unusual move, the raid was executed in front of television cameras and broadcast live. During the operation, police intentionally detonated a stun grenade and a police officer fired one round from his handgun, allegedly by accident, police belatedly admitted.
James Carlson’s charges were not dismissed. In addition to trespassing, he’s charged with criminal mischief and arson for burning an Israeli flag—that belonged to a pro-Israeli counter-protester—on the streets outside Columbia University on Apr. 20. He’s also charged with breaking a surveilance camera in a cell at police headquarters.
Because he “is charged with multiple crimes on 3 seperate dockets,” a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s office said in a statement to The Free Lance, “the People are moving forward with charges on these matters” and there is no plea-bargain office “at this time.”
In the remaining cases, prosecutors offered the protesters plea-bargain agreements that would wipe their arrests from official records if they stayed out of trouble for six months and participated in something the prosecution called “re-set programming.”
Only one accepted the deal. The remaining 13 are due back in court July 25.
Some of the protesters issued a statement on social media through Columbia University Apartheid Divest saying they rejected the deals because prosecutors were attempting to “divide the pro-Palestinian movement.” They called it a “show of solidarity.”