Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district lawyer, final week dropped many of the 46 circumstances in opposition to pro-Palestinian demonstrators charged within the April 30 siege of Hamilton Corridor at Columbia College as a result of prosecutors had little proof that the circumstances would rise up at trial.
There was restricted video footage of what happened contained in the campus constructing, Doug Cohen, a spokesman for the district lawyer, mentioned in a press release. The protesters wore masks and lined safety cameras, stopping prosecutors from figuring out those that had barricaded the doorways and smashed chairs, desks and home windows in the course of the 17-hour occupation.
The district lawyer introduced the choice to drop 31 of the 46 circumstances throughout a courtroom listening to on Thursday. Other than trespassing, a misdemeanor, proving some other prison expenses can be “extraordinarily troublesome,” Mr. Cohen mentioned.
For related causes, prosecutors additionally dismissed expenses in opposition to 9 of the 22 college students and workers members at Metropolis School who had been arrested inside a campus constructing and charged with housebreaking throughout a protest that happened on the identical night time because the arrests at Hamilton Corridor.
Six different individuals who had been arrested exterior the constructing nonetheless face prison expenses: 5 had been charged with second-degree assault, a felony, and one other was charged with prison possession of a weapon within the fourth diploma, a misdemeanor.
The protests on April 30 grew out of a weekslong encampment on Columbia’s South Garden that ignited related demonstrations in school campuses throughout the nation and resulted in a whole bunch of arrests. As the educational yr drew to an in depth, protesters known as on Columbia to divest from Israel, amongst different calls for, typically clashing with counterprotesters or with the police.
The college’s choice to name within the Police Division to clear Hamilton Corridor was met with each outrage and reward. Mayor Eric Adams blamed the occupation on “exterior agitators” who he mentioned had tried to “radicalize” in any other case peaceable college students. Many of the 282 individuals who had been arrested at Columbia and Metropolis School had been college students or college workers members; most had been issued summonses, and the remaining had been criminally charged, primarily with trespassing.
All of the protesters whose circumstances had been dropped had been affiliated with the colleges, Mr. Cohen mentioned. Each colleges should still self-discipline these whose prison circumstances had been dismissed, and circumstances involving extra severe expenses, together with assaults on cops, are persevering with, Mr. Cohen mentioned.
In New York Metropolis, it is not uncommon for prosecutors to drop circumstances in opposition to protesters charged with low-level offenses throughout mass arrests. Below Cyrus Vance Jr., the previous Manhattan district lawyer, 680 circumstances in opposition to the 732 folks arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge in the course of the Occupy Wall Road protests in 2011 had been dropped. Roughly 5,000 police summonses issued in the course of the citywide Black Lives Matter marches in 2020 had been additionally dismissed below Mr. Vance.
Mr. Bragg, a Democrat who took workplace in 2022 and lately gained a prison case in opposition to former President Donald J. Trump, has targeted his efforts on prosecuting extra severe crimes. Through the first week of his tenure, he confronted criticism when he instructed prosecutors to ask judges for jail or jail time just for severe offenses resembling homicide, sexual assault and main monetary crimes, until the legislation required in any other case. (He revised the coverage the subsequent month.)
Martin R. Stolar, a Manhattan lawyer and former president of the New York Metropolis chapter of the Nationwide Attorneys Guild, who has defended protesters for 50 years, mentioned Mr. Bragg’s choice final week was anticipated, calling it “a sensible use of prosecutorial assets.”
The protesters at Columbia and Metropolis School, most of them college students, “weren’t throwing bombs, they weren’t capturing folks, they weren’t robbing folks, they weren’t dealing medicine,” Mr. Stolar mentioned.
“Whenever you consider that in opposition to the backdrop of what these arrests had been, it doesn’t qualify as severe crime,” he added, “You must choose and select.”
Native politicians who’ve been essential of campus protesters and have spoken publicly about their assist for Israel acknowledged the problem of proving expenses within the circumstances that had been dismissed. In a radio interview on Friday, Mayor Adams, a Democrat, mentioned he revered the district lawyer’s choice. Consultant Jerrold Nadler, additionally a Democrat and the longest-serving Jewish member of the Home of Representatives, mentioned he had “the uttermost religion in D.A. Bragg.”
“The truth is, most of the circumstances associated to the protests at Columbia College are troublesome to prosecute because of a scarcity of proof, and the overwhelming majority concerned first-time offenders,” Mr. Nadler mentioned in a press release. “I stand by his judgment on this matter.”
However dozens of scholar protesters who appeared in courtroom on Thursday weren’t glad with Mr. Bragg’s choice, calling on him to dismiss all of the circumstances. Another college students who had been charged, talking at a information convention after the listening to, mentioned they’d obtained gives from prosecutors to dismiss their circumstances as long as they weren’t rearrested inside six months. Most had rejected these offers, they mentioned, arguing that the circumstances ought to have been dismissed outright.
Julian Roberts-Grmela contributed reporting.
