JAKE OFFENHARTZ, Related Press
FILE – Members of the New York Police Division strategic response workforce escort protesters from Columbia College, April 30, 2024, in New York. Scholar protesters started occupying Hamilton Corridor that morning. Dozens of Columbia College college students who had been arrested for occupying the campus constructing as a part of a pro-Palestinian protest may have their felony fees dropped, prosecutors stated Thursday, June 20. (AP Photograph/Julius Motal, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Dozens of Columbia College college students who had been arrested for occupying a campus constructing as a part of a pro-Palestinian protest may have their felony fees dropped, prosecutors stated.
At a courtroom listening to Thursday, the Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace stated it might not pursue felony fees for 31 of the 46 folks initially arrested on trespassing fees contained in the administration constructing.
College students and their allies seized the constructing, referred to as Hamilton Corridor, on April 30, barricading themselves inside with furnishings and padlocks in a serious escalation of campus protests in opposition to the Israel-Hamas battle.
On the request of college leaders, tons of of officers with the New York Police Division stormed onto campus the next night time, having access to the constructing by means of a second-story window and making dozens of arrests.
At Thursday’s listening to, prosecutors stated they had been dismissing fees in opposition to most of these arrested contained in the constructing due partially to an absence of proof tying them to particular acts of property injury and the truth that not one of the college students had felony histories.
Stephen Millan, an assistant district lawyer, famous that the protesters wore masks and blocked surveillance cameras within the constructing, making it troublesome to “show that they participated in damaging any Columbia College property or inflicting hurt to anybody.”
All of these college students are nonetheless dealing with disciplinary hearings and doable expulsion from the college.
Prosecutors stated they might transfer ahead with fees in opposition to one individual concerned within the constructing occupation, who can also be accused of breaking an NYPD digital camera in a holding cell and burning an Israeli flag throughout a protest.
13 others arrested within the constructing had been provided offers that might have finally led to the dismissal of their fees, however they refused them “in a present of solidarity with these dealing with probably the most excessive repression,” in line with a press release by Columbia College Apartheid Divest, a coalition group representing protesters. Of that group of arrestees, most had been alumni, prosecutors stated, although two had been college students.
9 different defendants who had been arrested for occupying one other constructing at Metropolis School of New York have additionally rejected proposed offers with prosecutors, in line with the group. Prosecutors stated Thursday that they might drop fees in opposition to 9 others who had been concerned within the Metropolis School occupation.
Inquiries to an lawyer representing lots of the arrested protesters weren’t returned.
The constructing occupations got here on the heels of a tent encampment at Columbia College that impressed a wave of comparable demonstrations at school campuses throughout the nation.
At Columbia, the group representing protesters have known as on the administration lower ties with Israel and to grant amnesty to protesters, vowing that demonstrations would proceed to “all through the summer time and past.”
