During an anti-Israel demonstration at NYU, angry protesters threw bottles at NYPD officers as they attempted to disperse the crowd on Monday. One protester even hit a cop’s helmet with a chair, according to a top NYPD official.
The NYPD entered the Greenwich Village campus, with permission from the university, after the protesters refused to leave Gould Plaza around 4 p.m., Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry told WABC on Tuesday morning.
Community Affairs officers initially tried to intervene, but the Strategic Response Group had to step in when some protesters turned violent and started throwing bottles at the cops, with one even hitting an officer’s helmet with a chair, as tweeted by the police official.
The individual who threw the chair has not been apprehended yet, but the NYPD is actively working to identify and arrest them for attempted assault.
A total of 120 people were taken into custody at NYU, with 116 receiving summonses for trespassing and four getting desk appearance tickets for charges like resisting arrest, none of which will result in a criminal record.
According to Daughtry, faculty members were the most aggressive during the demonstration, with some of them resisting the officers’ efforts to clear the plaza.
Additionally, “professional agitators” were present at the scene, trying to incite a mob mentality among the protesters, as noted by Daughtry.
