Mayor Adams claims 'outside agitators' are co-opting college protests

NEW YORK CITY (PIX11) -- New York City Mayor Adams detailed that “outside agitators” are radicalizing student protesters at Columbia University in a press conference Wednesday morning.

Adams on Wednesday said “outside agitators” are influencing college protests; people "agitators" city officials say “are not affiliated with the university” and are known to the department, according to NYPD Intelligence and Counterterrorism Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Weiner.

“There are a number of different individuals who we know from over the years associated with protests, not just in our city but in other cities as well, who are linked to and who see doing training around the change of tactics,” Weiner said.

Adams said these alleged professionals are impacting the students. 

“Young people are being influenced by those who are professionals at radicalizing our children,” Adams said. “And I’m not going to allow that to happen as the mayor of New York.”

Nearly 300 people were arrested Tuesday night after the NYPD was called in to clear out protestors at Columbia University and the City College of New York. 

At Columbia, student protesters took over a campus building, Hamilton Hall, in an escalation of ongoing student protests that landed hundreds in NYPD custody, according to police and student groups. 

Student organizers said the takeover was inspired by previous campus anti-war movements after negotiations over the University’s financial ties to Israel fell through, according to students with Columbia University Apartheid Divest. 

“This escalation is in line with the historical student movements of 1968, 1985, and 1996, which Columbia repressed then and celebrates today,” wrote the organizers in a statement to Instagram.

Adams explained that the NYPD used several tactics to clear out Hamilton Hall and the encampments, including drones, encrypted radios, and updated police training.

The NYPD and University have faced criticism for their response to student protests, which students and faculty have called brutal and “heavy-handed.”

“We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the heavy-handed, militaristic response to student activism that we are seeing across the country,” wrote representatives of the American Association of University Professors in a statement. 

“At this critical moment, too many cowardly university leaders are responding to largely peaceful, outdoor protests by inviting law enforcement in riot gear to campus and condoning violent arrests.”