Nearly half of the protesters arrested at the Columbia University and City College campuses during violent anti-Israel unrest weren’t students, police sources said Thursday — a day after Mayor Eric Adams warned “outside agitators” were radicalizing youngsters.
Of the 282 protesters cuffed and hauled away during a massive NYPD operation late Tuesday, 134 of them had zero affiliation with either school, according to law enforcement sources.
Hizzoner, who has repeatedly blamed this week’s on-campus chaos on professionals with a history of fueling non-peaceful protests, also touted the initial figures, saying more than 40% of the initial arrests were “outsiders.”
“What was given to me by my team, a preliminary review of the numbers, just the beginning process of analyzing, but it appears though that over 40% of those who participated in Columbia and CUNY were not from the school and they were outsiders,” Adams told NPR during a media blitz.
The breakdown emerged after Adams repeatedly stated that agitators had descended on Columbia in the lead up to Tuesday’s operation that saw cops storm the Morningside Heights campus to oust a destructive mob that had illegally taken over the Hamilton Hall academic building.
“There were individuals on the campus who should not have been there,” the mayor insisted Wednesday. “They were people who are professionals and we saw evidence of training.
“This is a global problem that young people are being influenced by those who are professionals at radicalizing our children and I’m not going to allow that to happen as the mayor of the city of New York,” he added.
Among the non-students arrested at CUNY was 42-year-old Fernando Bobis — a Brown University graduate who practices internal medicine doctor in Washington Heights.
Just moments after being cut loose from custody on Wednesday, Bobis — whined to reporters that he and his fellow cellmates had been denied water and weren’t allowed to use the bathroom overnight.
“Five and a half hours in a holding cell with no bathroom, no water, no food. I had a hard time checking my insulin to make sure I was okay. I’m Type 1 diabetic,” Bobis said outside NYPD headquarters.
Others include known anti-Israel protester Jesse Pape, 47, who has clashed with NYPD officers at other anti-Israel rallies; James Carlson, 40, who has previously been involved in protests that have blocked local bridges and tunnels, and Nora Fayad, 22, and Amelia Fuller, 23, who were seen on video chanting for Hamas.
The charges doled out to Columbia and City College arrestees ranged from trespass, criminal mischief and burglary.
A day after Adams declared professionals were radicalizing students, former President Donald Trump echoed those concerns — calling on more to be done to quell the violence.
“These are radical left lunatics and they have got to be stopped now,” Trump said as he arrived at his criminal trial in Lower Manhattan Thursday — close to where protesters were being processed at 1 Police Plaza a day earlier.
“We are not letting them take over the USA. We are not letting the radical left morons take over this country,” he added.
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