Live: New York City Mayor speaks about Columbia University protest encampment

Live: New York City Mayor speaks about Columbia University protest encampment

we and uh Carlos you can you can you can CH chime in if you want but when we took action on NYU we received nyu’s letter that they wanted to De clear their encampment when I tell you the i i i p my own personal uh opinion is that the Press kind of got in the way of our operation there was hundreds of views getting in the way of officers as they were trying to make arrest okay well I’m saying it was more than it was more than 50 and and I got we got video to prove that so thank thank you commissioner for uh you know uh uh you know getting the Press together so we can know who where the Press is at and that we don’t confuse them with the uh students or protesters thank you thanks um so my question is twofold I want to know about the individuals who are in training who made these makeshift weapons who have the pamphlets and all that is that one certain group would you call this a new breed of homegrown terrorists that we should be worried about here in New York City if you’re tracking them Across America and then my second question is about that impressive tactic of going into the building on that bear c cap that was dramatic and impressive to see was there something about the timing of when you did that can you paint a picture of what was going inside what you could see on the drones um with those makeshift weapons was violence emminent and did you think at that point you have to go in yeah no I mean I think it’s really important to very um in a nuanced way describe what we’re seeing and I wouldn’t describe it as a new breed of homegrown terrorism there is though a concern around radicalization as the mayor and the police commissioner have conveyed I think very effectively um this is a time when if you have and you know to to your point about being more specific last week there was the wife of somebody who had been convicted um for material support to terrorism on campus and we have no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing on her part um but that’s not somebody who I would want necess necessarily influencing my child if I were a parent of somebody at Colombia or the individuals who are involved in doing some of this training and tactical awareness activity um these students don’t come in the doors knowing how to barricade themselves behind barriers that they’ve created right these are all skills that are taught and learned and that presents uh a problem and so you know this is not about policing ideas in any way shape or form it is about recognizing when there is an actual Public Safety concern and we mentioned this yesterday but it’s worth reiterating to the protesters themselves if you’re barricaded in a building and an emergency happens there’s a risk to you um so it’s specific and we have to be calibrated but we also have to be um open and honest about what we’re seeing and we’re seeing a trajectory that concerns us oh yeah so some images um of stuff that was recovered and you know there was um the the image on the bottom left was pretty widespread distribution in the initial weeks after uh October 7th and when we saw a lot of big numbers of individuals in protests which is just a map of locations that were focused on for protest activity imagery on the top right um suggesting fomenting chaos and squatting as a tactic which we’ve seen in protests previously um some zip ties and some what we would call a very rudimentary makeshift weapon and you know I think the the reason for all of the protective gear that you saw last night and I don’t want to speak for my colleagues who um specialize in this is to protect officers when you’re going into a situation that you don’t fully understand what might greet you on the other side of the door um so this is important and it is not just a New York City issue it’s obviously not just a Colombia issue we saw it spread to ccny last night but this is unfolding across the country and in um Europe as well so this is a challenge we’re all going to be dealing with for some time so good morning everyone so what it took carefully planning uh especially with the chief of Department chief Mader and also all the executive boards uh Chief members that uh in our department uh to plan this uh this tactics to enter this building so as we saw there was a several areas where there was it was barricaded by several items such as Vending machines uh chairs tables and so on and as we enter it was very difficult for us to get in and push our way through because they were throwing objects at us so it was very difficult so the the amount that it took us we went pretty quickly but it was uh we tactically uh had every team around the building to enter that building so since we’re on this topic can we just go Tik Tok of some of the plan the response was en of how that played out at plan for this and how well that came together and I and I’ll speak to that thank you uh for just you know bringing that question in the light we really didn’t plan for this remember Hamilton Hall was was uh just taken over recently fairly recently and we didn’t get any requests from Colombia matter of fact I did a press conference around 11:00 yesterday we did not have a request so when I arrived when I finally got to the office yesterday and we realized we had a request we had to put a plan together fast all right but this is what we do we’re the best police department in the world for a reason cuz we do have the ability to adapt sit down you know we brought all the thought leaders in the room chief of Special Operations Division chief of emergency service unit chief of Patrol chief of Tren chief of housing I had them all in the room because they have years and years hundreds of years of experience in the room and we had to figure out how we were going to deal with what was going on in the street which was the first part of the plan because we had to be able to move we have we had to be able to bring the Bearcat in all right we had to make sure we were had a a clear passage for the for the buses once we uh had arrested individuals on the buses there was a lot that went into it then we had to deal with the encampment and then we had to deal with the building we had to make sure kept them separate so the decision was made that chief of Patrol would leave lead the lead the strategy on the on the ground to deal with the encampment while the chief of Special Operation Division and the chief of ESU would deal with the building all that equipment you see is lifes saving equipment all right it’s not equipment to uh go out and hurt and attack people that is life saving equipment when we have to save someone that’s the equipment that we use in this case we had to breach a building a very difficult building a building that we knew doors were uh uh fortified with vending machines couches metal chairs and uh the the the students and the people who were in the building were also pushing against the building and throwing uh uh objects at ESU as they made entry all right um for the first time in many years we use uh distraction devices something we haven’t used in years the only person in the department was authorized to allow that is me and before we sat down I told the memb ISU try not to use them but if we’re under attack and we have to do this not only to keep them safe but to keep the students safe we made a decision to use them and that’s what we did and even prior to going to Colombia we had to call we had to Pivot because uh City College got got uh a violent and we had to send some of the resources from the from Columbia to help deal with City College come back down to Colombia then go back to City College that we were we didn’t plan for that all right but this is this is this Department’s ability to move and pivot as needed to keep people safe and that’s what we did yesterday yeah I just want to add one more thing to that we also had to secure five dorms of over 2,000 students to make sure they were safe and we didn’t give them the option to come out of the dorm for just that reason so there was 2,000 additional kids on that campus that we secured they didn’t come out and that’s what that’s what added to the level of safety and success we had in this plan okay we’re going to take uh two more questions Tina Mo New York Post hi commissioner Wier to go back to the uh wife of the Man convicted on terror charges was she advising them training them can you give us a little bit more on on what she was doing there so we her presence was last week it was you know before what we saw over the last um couple of days and you know we haven’t been in the encampment so we don’t have a lot of fidelity on exactly and it isn’t just her there was a ton of people coming onto the campus and Colombia University described in their letter that the college had become a magnet for people from the outside and again this isn’t just something we’re hearing from Colombia it’s something that other universities have told us as well and they know their student population better than anybody um we know the people we know they know their community and so this is something we are all seeing independently is external folks and does this inherently mean that you’re going to see the kind of escalatory tactics that we saw yesterday it may or may not but when we do see them we understand that there’s a risk all right this will be our final question Aaron Ki thanks car thanks guys for doing this um I wondered maybe for the commissioner of the mayor if you you could just say a little bit about uh prior to the authorization letter arriving what your conversations with Colombia were like uh that that led up to it and then what information you were sharing and and what they were telling you and then also just your expectations on presence going forward how many officers remain on campus it seems like you’re authorized to be there through commencement what’s your expectation about what you’re going to have to do in the next couple of weeks the commissioner could talk about his conversations uh but we have been having ongoing conversations with all of our universities once we picked up uh from our intelligence uh that there was a real desire to start taking over buildings and a desire to uh escalate what was happening already and uh we spoke with the institutions and told them we’re here when you need us uh we’re going to uh pivot quickly uh and I think it was clear from the com the combination of what intel was able to share and the observations that the schools were making that the decision was made as uh Chief uh Madre stated this was a last minute call when we did our press conference we did not receive a letter at that time but I think the escalation of taking all uh the Hamilton building uh people saw of the information that that the intel was was supplying but we have been in regular contact with the school leadership not only the president uh but uh part of their operation uh uh management and we communicated with them shared information with them as we got it we shared it with them so we knew the balance of not going in without being invited unless there was imminent threat we knew that balance and I know the commissioner can share his conversations also with the leadership yeah pretty much the same conversations about students right to protest peacefully and obviously keeping every student faculty and staff safe at the schools and I’ll turn it over to Chief Department who can talk about what we’re going to do going forward as far as Presence at the schools yep right after this we’re going to go out we’re going to do a assessment of the campus we’re going to make sure we speak with the campus officials and then we’re going to make a determination what kind of resources that we’re going to put there our resources are there to support the university uh staff the public safety on campus the teachers um The Faculty members on campus just to make sure that the environment is safe so that’s that’s what our goal is going forward we’re going to see how we can assist them uh make a determination how many officers that will be that will be needed to do that so that the campus The Faculty Public Safety the teachers the leadership they can function and get new commencement the campus is SEC as is secure as we speak and we’ll do a reassessment like chief M you just mentioned thank you everyone thank you everyone for your time and attention your Katie Katie e e e e

Watch live as New York Mayor Eric Adams holds a news conference after New York City police on Tuesday (April 30) arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holed up in a building at Columbia University and removed a protest encampment that the Ivy League school had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.

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