After nearly 300 protesters were arrested at Columbia University, City College and Fordham University, Mayor Eric Adams remained adamant that outside agitators were to blame for inciting the campus unrest even as he estimated 60% of those arrested were students.
But once again, the mayor could not provide exact numbers of protesters who may be faculty, alumni or otherwise tied to the school. The mayor and police have consistently blamed the so-called agitators for the unrest but have not provided any details of the arrests, which mostly occurred Tuesday night.
The mayor dismissed the need to support his claim by disclosing the precise numbers of non-students.
“If one professor in a school — using this as a hypothetical — is instructing 50, 100 college students to do something inappropriate, that’s a bad thing,” he said in an interview on PIX11 on Thursday. ”I’m not going to continue to go down the road of what percentage are we talking about.”
But minutes later, the mayor provided a percentage in an interview with NPR. He said that preliminary data appeared to show that “over 40% of those who participated in Columbia and CUNY were not from the school.”
In a statement released late Thursday, the mayor’s office and NYPD provided a more detailed breakdown, saying only about 30% of the 112 Columbia protesters arrested on Tuesday were not affiliated with the school while 60% of the 170 arrested at City College’s Harlem campus were unaffiliated.
The higher share of non-student protesters had been expected at City College, where the protests were open to the community. In the days leading up to the arrests, Columbia had tightened security and limited access to mostly students residing on campus and essential staff.
The mayor’s effort to control the narrative around the protests comes as he faces criticism from left-leaning lawmakers over police intervention and a top NYPD official’s inflammatory social media post attacking one of his critics.
Tuesday night’s arrests of Columbia protesters who had taken over a building was preceded by hundreds of officers, some dressed in riot gear, flooding the campus and the surrounding Morningside Heights neighborhood.
Adams later characterized student protesters demanding a cease-fire in Gaza as being part of a younger generation “radicalized” by social media.
City officials are under pressure to support Adams’ claim that outside agitators fomented the protests after other evidence they provided appeared less than credible.
At a press conference on Wednesday, reporters questioned NYPD officials about a chain that police alleged was used by outside agitators they described as “professional.” The chain, which appeared to be a bike lock, was also roundly mocked on social media.
Adams and NYPD officials also referenced a woman whose husband was “convicted for terrorism.” But Nahla Al-Arian, 63, disputed their claims in an Associated Press interview, saying she visited the encampment last weekend but was not at Columbia this week when the protests escalated.
Her husband, Sami Al-Arian, had initially been charged with helping to lead the terrorist group Palestinian Jihad but was acquitted and later pleaded to a lesser charge of conspiracy.
Police officials also pointed to Lisa Fithian, a 63-year-old activist who has written a book on civil disobedience, as a “professional agitator.” Fithian told the New York Times that she had been invited to lead a training session with protesters at Columbia but was not paid, although activists and unions have paid her to run workshops in the past.
The NYPD has responded aggressively to questions about the arrests and its claims about outside agitators.
Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, a frequent critic of the mayor, called the NYPD’s arrests of student protesters “a colossal disgrace” and “an abject failure of public safety.”
Responding to her post on X, John Chell, the NYPD chief of patrol, called Cabán “a person who hates our city” and “a horrifying affront to democracy.”
Chell has become one of the leading voices of the NYPD’s new social media strategy, which has included erroneously attacking a judge and spreading inaccurate information about the migrants suspected of attacking two police officers in Times Square.
But Chell’s post about Cabán was deleted on Thursday after several elected officials expressed outrage over his comments.
“How is an official government account allowed to speak to another government official in this way?” said Councilmember Nantasha Williams. “Regardless of how you feel and where you stand ideologically this is dangerous and a gross use of an official government account.”
“If you’ve ever wondered what a Giuliani NYPD would look like with social media, wonder no more,” wrote Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.
Adams has steadfastly defended the NYPD’s use of social media. When Adams was asked earlier in the week during a City Hall press conference about a post in which Chell described protesters as “entitled hateful students,” he defended Chell’s remarks.
“I find that when you share your opinion, it’s not bottled up,” he told reporters. “Let’s just share our opinion, but let’s be kind while we do it. Love and kindness would get us through this all.”
This story has been updated with additional comment from the mayor and NYPD.