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WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT 'OUTSIDE AGITATORS' COPS SAY ARE CO-OPTING COLUMBIA PROTESTS

"There is a movement to radicalize young people," Mayor Eric Adams said.

By
Aaron Katersky
and
Bill Hutchinson
May 1, 2024, 2:35 PM ET
• 8 min read

Eric Adams discusses 'outside agitators' at Columbia University protestsNew York
Mayor Eric Adams discussed why NYPD tactics were used during protests at
Columbia University and City College, which led to about 300 arrests.Spencer
Platt/Getty Images

Protests at Columbia University against the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza have been
allegedly "co-opted" by what New York City police officials described as
professional outside agitators bent on sowing chaos and violence.

Top police brass in New York said at a news conference Wednesday that protesters
unaffiliated with Columbia University have been escalating violence.



"I know that there are those who are attempting to say, 'Well, the majority of
the people have been students.' You don't have to be the majority to influence
and co-opt an operation. That's what this is about," said New York City Mayor
Eric Adams.

The mayor added, "We're going to protect our city from those who are attempting
to do what is happening globally. There is a movement to radicalize young people
and I'm not going to wait until it's done and all of a sudden acknowledge the
existence of it."


Pro-Palestinian supporters confront police during demonstrations at The City
College Of New York (CUNY) as the NYPD cracks down on protest camps at both
Columbia University and CCNY on April 30, 2024 in New York City.Spencer
Platt/Getty Images

"These external actors are obviously not students and their presence on campus
is a violation of Columbia's clearly stated policy," Adams said during a press
briefing Tuesday. "This is to serve their own agenda. They are not here to
promote peace or unity or allow the peaceful displaying of one voice. But
they're here to create discord and divisiveness."

On Tuesday night, police arrested nearly 300 people at Columbia University, and
at City College of New York in Harlem, the latter where Adams said officers had
bottles and garbage cans thrown at them as they moved in to make arrests.

The mayor said demonstrators who occupied Columbia's Hamilton Hall were guided
by people who have no connection to Columbia University. He further said those
arrested were at the time still being processed by police, who were determining
who is a student and who is not.



The arrests at Columbia and CCNY Harlem came hours after Rebecca Weiner, the
NYPD deputy commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism, said officers
have observed outsiders on campus with whom they are familiar from other
protests staged in the city over the years.


New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks at a press conference with New York City
Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Edward Caban as Adams holds up the request
from Columbia University asking for police to clear protestors from Columbia
University, where a building occupation and protest encampment had been set up
in support of Palestinians, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the
Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in New York City, May 1, 2024.Mike
Segar/Reuters

Without identifying them, Weiner said some of the alleged demonstrators
unaffiliated with Columbia were active in the Occupy Wall Street protests of
2011, the 2020 so-called "autonomous zone" protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota
following the police killing of George Floyd, and the ongoing Stop Cop City
demonstrations opposing a police training facility in Atlanta.

"These protests have been and are being influenced by external actors who are
unaffiliated with the universities, some of whom have been known to our
department and others for many years for their dangerous, disruptive and
criminal activity associated with protests for years," Weiner said during
Tuesday's briefing. "So, this is not about what's happening overseas, it's not
about the last seven months. It's about a commitment to, at times, violent
protest activity as an occupation."

Weiner said officers observed the alleged outside agitators on campus at
Columbia teaching students, who have been conducting mostly peaceful
pro-Palestinian protests, aggressive tactics that she said were used in the
takeover of Hamilton Hall.

MORE: Protests engulf Columbia University and other campuses with encampments,
arrests

Weiner played a two-minute video showing individuals dressed in black breaking
into windows at the Hamilton Hall academic building, and others dragging metal
barricades into the building to use to help block entrances and exits. She said
the alleged agitators taught students to use de-arresting tactics, and
encouraged them to destroy property and to fortify protest signs for use as
shields. Another tactic Weiner said protestors used was chaining themselves
together to block access to Hamilton Hall.

"Cameras have been destroyed and there's only one reason to destroy a camera.
It's certainly not something anyone is taught at school," Weiner said.

She added, "We think these tactics are a result of guidance that's being given
to students from some of these actors."


Police watch as pro-Palestinian supporters continue to demonstrate outside of an
encampment on the campus of Columbia University on April 30, 2024 in New York
City.Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Protesters allegedly unaffiliated with Columbia who were removed from Hamilton
Hall and arrested are facing charges of trespassing, destruction of property,
vandalism, and criminal mischief, according to police officials.

New York Police Commissioner Edward Caban said the more aggressive tactics being
deployed by protesters are "endangering public safety."

"These once-peaceful protests are being exploited by professional outside
agitators and the safety of all students, faculty and staff are now a concern,"
Caban said at Tuesday's briefing.

He said Columbia University is private property, and so "decisions on what to do
on that property are up to the university."

On Tuesday, Columbia officials asked the NYPD to come on campus and clear
Hamilton Hall of the demonstrators, Adams said Wednesday, adding that university
officials acknowledged that "outside agitators were on their grounds training
and really co-opting this movement."

MORE: Speaker Johnson, House Republicans ramp up criticism of 'out of control'
college protests

Other U.S. colleges have also alleged that outside agitators have infiltrated
student protests. At the University of Texas in Austin, officials said 45 of the
79 people arrested on campus Monday had no affiliation with the university.

"These numbers validate our concern that much of the disruption on campus over
the past week has been orchestrated by people from outside the University,
including groups with ties to escalating protests at other universities around
the country," University of Texas officials said in a statement. "To date, from
protesters, weapons have been confiscated in the form of guns, buckets of large
rocks, bricks, steel-enforced wood planks, mallets, and chains.

"Staff have been physically assaulted and threatened, and police have been
headbutted and hit with horse excrement, while their police cars have had tires
slashed with knives," the statement also said. "This is calculated, intentional
and, we believe, orchestrated, and led by those outside our university
community."

"We will continue to safeguard the free speech and assembly rights of everyone
on our campus, while we protect our University and students, who are preparing
for their final exams," the statement concluded.

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