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      Eric Adams Seizes Role as Face of the Crackdown on Student Protests

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      Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday defended the overnight arrests of nearly 300 campus protesters in New York City, praising the police for using restraint and arguing that protesters were antisemitic and led by outsiders who were part of a global effort to “radicalize young people.”Mr. Adams said at a news conference at the police headquarters that he had advised Columbia University’s leaders that the police had seen a shift in tactics at the protests led by “outside agitators” and that “you have more than a peaceful protest on your hands.”“They are attempting to disrupt our city and we are not going to permit it to happen,” Mr. Adams said.The police arrested 119 protesters at Columbia University on Tuesday and 173 people at the City College of New York after leaders at both schools requested assistance from the New York Police Department, the police said.For much of the weekslong protest at Columbia, university leaders have remained in the background, making much of their public pronouncements through campuswide advisories.In their absence, Mr. Adams, a Democrat and former police officer, has forcefully stepped in, embracing a role that adheres to his law enforcement background, his reputation as a mayor focused on reducing disorder and strong support for Israel over many years.As pro-Palestinian protests have erupted on campuses across New York City, Mr. Adams has gone beyond calling for order, calling protesters “despicable” and encouraging university leaders to quickly remove encampments.Mr. Adams said on Wednesday that he was proud of the police officers who removed a Palestinian flag that was hung from a flagpole at Columbia University and replaced it with an American flag — an image the police promoted widely.“Blame me for being proud to be an American,” Mr. Adams said. “We’re not surrendering our way of life to anyone.”City officials and the police said that the use of large chains to block doors and other tactics showed that “professional” activists were influencing student protesters. They have not named the outsiders who were involved in the protests and declined on Wednesday to say how many of the protesters who were arrested were not affiliated with the colleges.Left-leaning Democrats have criticized the mayor’s approach. Ana María Archila, a director of the New York Working Families Party, said that the police response on Tuesday was “reckless, escalatory and put the entire university community in harm’s way.”“This is a shameful day in our city’s history, and one that will not be forgotten,” she said.Jeffery C. Mays More

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      Columbia Asks N.Y.P.D. to Stay on Campus Through Middle of May

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      Columbia University asked the New York Police Department in a letter on Tuesday to clear a building occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters and encampments, and asked that the police remain on campus until at least May 17, after commencement.President Nemak Shafit requested the N.Y.P.D.’s assistance in a letter that was released after police entered Hamilton Hall and arrested protesters that had occupied the building on early Tuesday. Columbia’s commencement is currently scheduled for May 15.By late evening, dozens of police officers had arrived, climbed through windows on campus and arrested protesters who had occupied a building since early Tuesday. Much of the campus had been cleared of people, although dozens of protesters still chanted outside of its gates.Dr. Shafik said in the letter that “the takeover of Hamilton Hall and the continued encampments raise serious safety concerns for the individuals involved and the entire community,” adding that “these activities have become a magnet for protesters outside our gates which creates significant risk to our campus and disrupts the ability of the University to continue normal operations.”A decision earlier this month to bring police onto campus to clear a tent protest led to sharp criticism from some students and faculty. But Dr. Shafik said on Tuesday that she was left with “no choice.”“With the support of the University’s Trustees, I have determined that the building occupation, the encampments, and related disruptions pose a clear and present danger to persons, property, and the substantial functioning of the University and require the use of emergency authority to protect persons and property,” she wrote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Columbia’s University Senate Calls for an Investigation Into the Administration

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      The senators voted for a resolution that accused the administration of breaching the due-process rights of students and professors.Columbia University’s senate voted on Friday to approve a resolution that called for an investigation into the school’s leadership, accusing the administration of violating established protocols, undermining academic freedom, jeopardizing free inquiry and breaching the due process rights of both students and professors.The university’s president, Nemat Shafik, has been under attack for her decision last week to summon the New York Police Department to campus, resulting in the arrest of more than 100 student protesters, and for her earlier congressional testimony, in which professors accused her of capitulating to the demands of congressional Republicans over free speech and the disciplining of students and professors.The resolution, adopted by a vote of 62-14, with three abstentions, fell short of a proposal earlier in the week to censure Dr. Shafik, which many senators worried could be perceived as yielding to Republican lawmakers who had called for her resignation over her handling of antisemitism claims.The senate resolution was based partly on a damaging report by the senate executive committee, which accused Dr. Shafik’s administration of engaging in “many actions and decisions that have harmed” the institution — including the hiring of an “aggressive” private investigation firm.The report, which was discussed in Friday’s meeting, said that investigators harassed students and used “intrusive investigation methods,” which included “investigators’ attempt to enter student rooms and dormitories without students’ consent.”Investigators, the report said, demanded “to see students’ phones and text messages with threats of suspension for noncompliance.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Eric Adams’s Top Aide, Timothy Pearson, Is Hit With a Second Harassment Lawsuit

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      The aide, Timothy Pearson, was accused of harassing and retaliating against a second police sergeant under his watch.One of Mayor Eric Adams’s closest confidants was sued on Wednesday for the second time in a month over accusations that he harassed and retaliated against a New York Police Department sergeant he oversaw.The confidant, Timothy Pearson, was so prone to sexually harassing women that he was secretly placed under watch to try to prevent him from being alone with female colleagues, the suit says.The allegations, made by a retired sergeant, Michael Ferrari, in a complaint filed Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, support similar accusations by one of Mr. Ferrari’s former colleagues in the unit, Roxanne Ludemann.Ms. Ludemann filed suit against Mr. Pearson last month, alleging that he often put his hands on female colleagues and retaliated against those who complained.Ms. Ludemann retired in January after she said she was subject to harassment and retaliation. Her departure came roughly seven months after Mr. Ferrari retired; he said in the lawsuit that Mr. Pearson’s harassment and retaliation had effectively ended his career.Mr. Ferrari also asserted that Mr. Pearson was privately given the nickname “Crumbs” when he expressed anger after a contractor had been paid.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      N.Y.P.D. Commissioner Won’t Punish Officers in Bronx Man’s Killing

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      The officers, Brendan Thompson and Herbert Davis, were previously cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the fatal 2019 shooting of Kawaski Trawick.Two New York City police officers involved in the fatal shooting of a 32-year-old Bronx man in his kitchen in 2019 acted within the law and will not be punished, the city’s police commissioner said on Friday.The announcement by the commissioner, Edward A. Caban, was the last in a series of decisions clearing the officers, Brendan Thompson and Herbert Davis, of wrongdoing in the killing of the man, Kawaski Trawick.The officers entered Mr. Trawick’s apartment the night of April 14, 2019, after responding to 911 calls saying that he had been acting erratically and threatening other tenants.When Mr. Trawick jumped toward them with a knife, the police said, Officer Thompson used his Taser against him before shooting at him four times. The two left Mr. Trawick lying on the floor of his apartment, according to police documents.Mr. Trawick’s parents, Ellen and Rickie Trawick, condemned the commissioner’s decision, saying in a statement that Mayor Eric Adams and the Police Department “don’t seem to care about protecting New Yorkers from cops who kill.”They added that “the utter disregard they have for our son’s memory” was “disgusting and shameful.”The Bronx district attorney, Darcel D. Clark, declined in 2020 to file charges against the officers, citing what she said was an inability to “prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that Officer Thompson’s “use of deadly physical force was not justified.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      N.Y.P.D. Defends Contentious Arrests of ‘Violence Interrupters’

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      The arrests, which led one of the men to be hospitalized, heightened tensions between officers and outreach workers trained to intervene in street conflicts.The New York Police Department continued on Friday to defend its arrests of two conflict mediators in Brooklyn in February, releasing body-camera and surveillance videos of the episode that police officials said showed one of the workers striking an officer.The arrests of the mediators, one of whom was injured while being swarmed by officers, exposed tensions between the police and those known as violence interrupters, who work for city-funded organizations and try to defuse street-level conflicts before they escalate, including into gun violence.The mediators, Mark Johnson and Dequann Stanley, who are longtime employees of the violence-interrupter group Save Our Streets in Crown Heights, were arrested in the episode and issued summonses for disorderly conduct. The charges were later dismissed.The men filed court papers indicating that they intended to sue the city as a result of the arrests, which they said occurred as they tried to calm a man who was being taken into police custody.But at a briefing this week and in a social media post on Friday, police officials said the men had disrupted officers as they arrested the man, who was ultimately charged with fentanyl possession.The arrests and the ensuing fallout pose a challenge to Mayor Eric Adams, whose public safety strategy leans heavily on expanding the use of interrupters, a community-based supplement to traditional policing that has taken root in other major U.S. cities. Last year, Mr. Adams announced $86 million in funding for the interrupter system in the 2024 fiscal year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      N.Y.P.D. Often Ignores Parking-Permit Abuse, Report Says

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      Failing to ticket illegally parked cars with officially issued permits is “a form of corruption that erodes the public trust,” the Department of Investigation said.The New York Police Department routinely fails to ticket illegally parked cars that have city-issued parking permits, especially near precinct houses, and residents’ complaints about permit abuse rarely result in summonses, according to a report issued on Wednesday.The report, by the city’s Department of Investigation, confirmed what many New Yorkers know firsthand: that tens of thousands of people with city-issued permits, many of them police officers, can typically park anywhere they like with little fear of consequences.In a city where street parking is at a premium and a space in a garage for even a short period can be costly, the failure to crack down on the misuse of city-issued permits, the report said, is “a form of corruption that erodes the public trust in municipal government.”“Parking permit abuse obstructs streets and sidewalks, creating potentially dangerous conditions for pedestrians and motorists alike,” Jocelyn E. Strauber, the Department of Investigation commissioner, said in a statement. “And a lack of enforcement of parking laws with respect to permit-holders sends a message of special treatment.”The report included about 11 recommendations for tackling the problem, including developing a uniform permit across agencies; conducting annual audits of active permits to determine whether they should be revoked; and scrapping “self-enforcement zones” near precincts.The Police Department, the report said, “has no written policies or procedures regarding the self-enforcement zones, and the rate of enforcement of parking laws within those zones was significantly lower than outside of those zones.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man Charged With Killing Officer Was Seen With Gun Beforehand, D.A. Says

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      Another officer patrolling Far Rockaway said he noticed Guy Rivera carrying a gun before he fatally shot Detective Jonathan Diller, according to the authorities.A police officer saw the man accused of killing Detective Jonathan Diller carrying what appeared to be a gun before the confrontation that led to the fatal shooting last week, according to new details released by the Queens district attorney.The officer, who was on patrol in the Far Rockaway section of Queens and has not been identified by the authorities, noticed that the man, Guy Rivera, had the gun in the front pocket of his sweatshirt, the district attorney, Melinda Katz, said in an indictment on Monday.After Mr. Rivera stepped into the passenger side of a car, Detective Diller, who was promoted posthumously, and other officers approached the vehicle, prosecutors said. They asked Mr. Rivera several times to roll down his window before they managed to get the car door open, according to the indictment.Mr. Rivera then took out the gun and shot Detective Diller in the stomach at almost point-blank range, Ms. Katz said in a statement. Mr. Rivera has been charged with first-degree murder.The details provide a possible new explanation for why the officers went up to the vehicle. Officials had previously said that the officers had approached Mr. Rivera and the driver, Lindy Jones, because they were illegally parked at a bus stop.Mr. Rivera, 34, was also charged with attempted murder for attempting to fire his gun at another police officer after shooting Detective Diller.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More