Emerging details about the NYPD’s response to recent protests on college campuses have led some police oversight advocates to question if the department has actually changed the way it approaches such demonstrations, as it was legally required to do after the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement.
The protests at Columbia University, City College of New York, Fordham University and other area schools marked the first major surge of civil disobedience in the city since a judge last month ordered the NYPD to drastically change how it handles demonstrations. The settlement, which came after hundreds of lawsuits and civilian complaints claimed that police used excessive force in 2020, aimed to set strict guidelines for how police would respond in the future.
“We have to ask ourselves whether we learned any lessons from the 2020 protests,” said Jennvine Wong, a supervising attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Cop Accountability Unit. “And I think that our leadership, our City Council, should be asking themselves what we should learn from the NYPD response to these protests.”
The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment Monday. But police officials and Mayor Eric Adams have repeatedly defended the department’s handling of the protests — even as reports emerged last week that an NYPD sergeant accidentally fired his gun while searching for protesters inside Hamilton Hall at Columbia University. Police later said the bullet went into an empty office.
“The NYPD’s precision policing ensured that the operation was organized, calm and that there were no injuries or violent clashes,” Adams said at a press conference last week, the morning after police arrested about 300 people at Columbia and City College.
Isabelle Leyva, a senior organizer with the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the department’s response did not feel organized or calm as she observed from outside the two colleges last week. She said she heard screaming and the loud booms of flash bangs as hordes of officers in helmets swarmed the scene — more than she had remembered during her five years of documenting demonstrations.
At Columbia, Leyva said, she and others struggled to see what was happening inside the gates because police limited journalists and monitors to certain areas, and most of the action was out of sight. Outside the Morningside Heights campus, as well as 20 blocks up at City College, she said, she watched police attempt to clear the sidewalk by arresting residents or forcing them inside their apartment buildings.
“It was a very, very intense police presence,” Leyva said.
A spokesperson for the Civilian Complaint Review Board confirmed last week that the agency, which investigates allegations of police misconduct, has received complaints from campus protesters. The number of complaints was not immediately available.
The NYPD, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Aid Society and the attorney general agreed to a settlement last year that will require police to try to de-escalate before using force at protests. It also mandates that the department create a position to oversee the NYPD’s response to protests, requires officers to allow journalists to observe and record in public areas, and orders the city to form an oversight committee to evaluate how police handle protests.
The Police Benevolent Association tried to stymie the agreement, but a judge denied its request in April, and the first phase of the agreement should be in effect. Union spokesperson John Nuthall said an appeal is currently pending in federal court.
The Legal Aid Society on Monday asked the city’s Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD to investigate the department’s “problematic crackdown of protests at local universities and colleges.” City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams also asked the agency to review the department’s use of social media, particularly some posts from members of the top brass that she called “dangerous” and “unethical.”
Department of Investigation spokesperson Diane Struzzi said the office is reviewing both requests.
Wong with the Legal Aid Society said there’s a lot she’s still waiting to find out about the NYPD’s response to the campus protests, including why officers gave some protesters summonses or desk appearance tickets and let them return home, while others were booked and had to wait one or two nights before they appeared in court and were released.
Both Wong and Leyva questioned the NYPD’s reliance on specialized units like the Strategic Response Group, a counter-terrorism team that responds to protests in tactical gear. Some advocates and lawmakers have asked the department to disband the unit.
“Sending in a counterterrorism unit is a choice,” Wong said. “The NYPD has chosen to send in basically a small army to meet mostly non-violent students.”