New York City Mayor Adams Asked Point Blank How Many Columbia Protesters Were 'Outside Agitators'

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At a press briefing on Wednesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) was asked about protests and arrests at Columbia University.

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Transcript

00:00Commissioner and Mr. Mayor, I wonder if you could tell us how many of the people who were

00:13arrested both inside Hamilton Hall and outside were not affiliated with the school, were

00:19not students, were outside agitators, both inside and outside, and I have a second question.

00:25I'll pass that question over to our Chief Patrol John Shaw.

00:28So right now, as it breaks down, we have 282 arrests.

00:33As of right now, we have 282 arrests, 173 of those came from City College, 109 came

00:39from Columbia.

00:41How it breaks down to your question, we'll have that answer sometime today.

00:44We haven't broken it down yet, but we'll have that answer.

00:45Can you give us any more details about the people who were not affiliated with them?

00:46What groups they were associated with?

00:47Good morning.

00:59So there are a number of different individuals who we know from over the years associated

01:05with protests, not just in our city, but in other cities as well, who are linked to and

01:13who we see doing training around the change in tactics that we described yesterday and

01:19that we all witnessed.

01:20The black block attire, the breaking windows, breaking doors, the vandalism, property destruction,

01:27the barricading, makeshift weapons that we recovered in the encampment.

01:33So that change in tactics combined with the presence of known individuals on campus in

01:41the lead-up to what happened in Hamilton Hall is why we had a real elevated concern

01:47around public safety.

01:48Kami, how many?

01:49Just one moment.

01:50Marsha, we know that the terminology of outside agitators were used during the Civil Rights

02:01Movement, and people attempted to show that the movement was not legitimate.

02:08So we understand that.

02:10This police department cannot be caught up on what's the political correct terminology.

02:16We have to be caught up on public safety.

02:18There were individuals on the campus, should not have been there.

02:22There were people who are professionals, and we saw evidence of training.

02:28We saw a shift in tactics that were being used, and when you start using the intelligence

02:34that Intel was able to supply, we knew it was time to communicate directly with the

02:39school and say you have more than a peaceful protest on your hand.

02:44Mr. Mayor, if I could just add to that, just as the letter said that we received from Columbia,

02:49this was led by outside agitators, and this was also stated in the letter that we received

02:54when Columbia asked us to move in.

New York City Mayor Adams Asked Point Blank How Many Columbia Protesters Were 'Outside Agitators'

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