Less than half of the pro-Hamas protesters arrested at New York University last week after refusing to vacate the campus were members of the academic institution, the university said on Wednesday.
Of the 133 protesters arrested on April 22 at Gould Plaza on campus, 65 were students, faculty or other employees of NYU, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood on the west side of lower Manhattan. It is the largest private university in the United States by enrollment.
“I never thought that as president I would need to rely on the NYPD to secure the safety of our community,” President Linda G. Mills said in the statement.
Mills added that several buildings on campus had to be locked down that evening for security reasons.
At Columbia University in northern Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood, Hamas supporters who were not students or staff were involved in violent protests, according to the city’s mayor.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, revealed that “outside agitators,” including one whose husband was convicted for terrorism, played a key role in the anti-Israel and antisemitic protests at Columbia.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said on Wednesday it was unclear how many of the 280 arrested at Columbia were outsiders.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner said at a news conference on Wednesday alongside Adams, that going through the names of those arrested to determine whether they are affiliated with the universities will “take time.”