Manhattan DA Drops Most Charges Against People Who Took Over Columbia U. Building and Allegedly Held Custodians Hostage
“a prosecutor in Bragg’s office argued that the defendants should not face criminal penalties, citing their lack of criminal histories and arguing that the protesters will face internal discipline at Columbia”
There were 46 people charged in connection with the takeover of a campus building at Columbia University in April. The Manhattan DA has just dropped the charges against 31 people, citing lack of evidence.
This mob not only took over a building, they trashed it and allegedly held custodians hostage. The same DA office that is so determined to go after Trump because supposedly ‘no one is above the law’ is letting these terrorists off the hook.
The 46 individuals charged with various crimes (mostly misdemeanor charges) related to the takeover of Hamilton Hall of @Columbia appeared in court today in NYC.
The @ManhattanDA dropped all charges for 31 of the 46, citing lack of evidence; all 31 were students or staff of…
— Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus (@CampusJewHate) June 20, 2024
Nearly all criminal charges against the protesters arrested for wreaking antisemitic havoc at Columbia University have been dropped by a Soros DA. pic.twitter.com/rN91oUi693
— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) June 20, 2024
NBC News reports:
Manhattan DA drops charges against most of the Columbia University protesters
Nearly all of the people who were arrested inside Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall last month had their cases dropped Thursday.
Of the 46 people charged with trespassing in connection with the building’s occupation, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office dismissed cases against 31 people largely due to a lack of evidence. Prosecutors told 14 others that their cases would be dropped if they avoid being arrested in the next six months, but those defendants rejected that offer and will be due back in court on July 25.
The remaining defendant, James Carlson, has two other open cases against him involving separate charges, including flag burning. Carlson has no affiliation with the school.
Protesters had seized the building on the Manhattan campus of Columbia University on April 30 as demonstrations against the war in Gaza erupted on some U.S. college campuses and as tensions at Columbia intensified over mass suspensions…
Those arrested included at least 14 Columbia undergraduates, nine graduate students, two employees and six students from affiliated schools, a Columbia spokesperson previously said. At least 13 of them had no affiliation with Columbia, the school said.
The Washington Free Beacon report by Jessica Costescu has more details that will make your blood boil:
The Washington Free Beacon attended the Thursday afternoon proceedings at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. A trove of students and their supporters, many of whom used face masks and keffiyehs to cover their faces, streamed into the building just before 3 p.m., the Free Beacon observed.
Inside the courtroom—where audio and video recording is not allowed—a prosecutor in Bragg’s office argued that the defendants should not face criminal penalties, citing their lack of criminal histories and arguing that the protesters will face internal discipline at Columbia.
The prosecutor also argued that Bragg’s office lacked evidence to land convictions in the cases, given those who occupied Hamilton Hall wore masks and covered up surveillance cameras. New York City police arrested the occupiers while they were inside Hamilton Hall.
the Jihad Klan really hates being asked to show their ugly hateful faces in public https://t.co/fWx3d0868y
— Daniel Greenfield – "Hang Together or Separately" (@Sultanknish) June 20, 2024
This news came on the same day that the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression released a poll that found that most Americans want college students punished over anti-Israel encampments.
The College Fix reports:
Punish students for anti-Israel encampments, 3 in 4 Americans say
Nearly three in four Americans want to see anti-Israel protesters punished for the encampments that they erected on campuses across the nation this spring, according to a new poll.
The poll from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression also found the protesters did not sway many Americans’ opinions toward their cause.
Conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, the poll found 73 percent of Americans say student protesters should be punished for participating in the encampments, with 18 percent saying they should be expelled.
In contrast, 23 percent said they should not be disciplined.
This is outrageous.
It was Alvin Bragg’s office that dropped the charges against the criminals who took over Hamilton Hall btw.
Impossible to ignore the fact that his office pursues political vendettas while giving actual criminals a pass. pic.twitter.com/Nl9RQKbcaq
— AG (@AGHamilton29) June 20, 2024
Pro Hamas protesters caused tens of thousands of dollars in damages and attacked a custodian at Columbia University.
How much damage do you need to do in order for the Manhattan DA to prosecute you if your name isn't Donald Trump? https://t.co/9zGSE7V7zu
— Joel M. Petlin (@Joelmpetlin) June 20, 2024
Pro-Hamas thug flips off the cameras as she leaves her hearing at Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for those arrested for rioting at Hamilton Hall in Columbia University.
These jihadists should all be deported.
Even if they’re citizens.pic.twitter.com/2VZIHglCEH
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) June 20, 2024
We’ll all be paying off student loans for some of them, eventually.
Featured image via Twitter video.
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Comments
Of course the charges against them were dropped, none of them is named Donald Trump.
Did anyone expect anything else from this DA? Inquiring minds want to know if Colangelo had anything to do with this decision. It sure smacks of a political decision to keep the terrorists voting for demonrats. FJB
He’s a real turd. But isn’t this what the deluded folk of Manhattan wanted?
I bet the DA worked tirelessly
to find someway to tie Trump
into this … alas he could not.
These wokiesta prosecutors are doing the lifting to publicly demonstrate our current bifurcated system of ‘justice’. Whether the folks watching think this is totes ok, they are horrified or somewhere in between …everyone viewing it knows it exists. Each subsequent example reinforces the point and with every new example a few more folks shift into ‘this needs to stop’ territory. The recent wailing on the left about the possibility of a DJT ‘revenge and retribution tour’ if elected seems to underscore that even the die hard leftists don’t want this…unless they are permanently the ones dishing it out but never take their turn to receive it. The pendulum always swings back the opposite direction and the further and longer it is pulled in one direction the greater the damage when it eventually swings back the other direction.
It would give me great pleasure if Di and Trump got re-elected and did go full on Dictator.
Open the gulags, open the torture chambers, open the prisons in the extreme heat and cold climate regions.
Then work them to their demise.
Oh, wait… that’s the Democrats who provided us with a demented resident so they can exercise dictatorial control.
“Donald Trump” not “Di and Trump”
Damn the auto correct and ad pop ups in the middle of the preview screen!
My kingdom for an edit button!
I have been bit by this, as have most all of us. I guess I will have to train myself to hit preview every time before I hit submit.
Last night, Trump said on the ‘All In’ podcast that ‘If you graduate from college, you should get as part of your diploma, a green card.’
Look at all the murderous, Jew-hating imbeciles Trump wants to give a green card to. Oh boy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blqIZGXWUpU
I saw that immediately said “WTF”. Normal Americans are finally seeing what the universities have been churning out in real-time and he says that?
Let’s face it, quite a few academic disciplines are worthless and the pro-Hamas crowd are largely “earning” degrees in those disciplines. Hardly an accomplishment that should be rewarded a path to citizenship.
Guys we gotta stop projecting onto Trump all the things WE may want. DJT generally holds moderate centrist policy ideas. He is basically a ’90s d/prog with two exceptions; he proposed enhanced border security; the wall (which we.didn’t get), and reforming our tax/regulatory structure to encourage more domestic manufacturing and US based jobs. He also supported Israel far more than any other previous POTUS in rhetoric and in action. He wants our international ‘partners’ aka NATO to fulfill their responsibilities and made credible threats of they didn’t. He is for domestic oil/gas. 95% of that is basically indistinguishable from mainstream political doctrine of the ’80s and ’90s of both d/prog and GoP.
His 2A policy included a bump stock ban among other less than doctrinaire positions. He led ‘prison reform’ letting all sorts of folks out of federal prison early. In the immediate wake of Dobbs he seemed to embrace Congress creating a 15 week abortion ban, thus rejecting Federalism and overturning more restrictive laws in Red States.
While he absolutely is far and away the better choice than Biden and better than 90% of the current GoP politicians on policy he isn’t some right winger. If y’all project your own policy preferences onto him and expect him to implement them ….outside the border wall, immigration, tax/regulatory policy we are gonna be frequently disappointed. Accept him for who and what he is.
Good comment. I’ve been pointing out that, no matter that I’m voting for him (barring a much better alternative that is viable), he is not a conservative and never has been. He is by no means going to be America’s savior, but he’s significantly better than the alternatives, and he, at least, actually loves America as it has been. It’s a no-brainer vote.
Even though he’s not a Conservative he is America’s savior. There’s no one else willing and able to successfully oppose the destructive policies of the Left.
No man can ever be our savior.
Only the people can return us to a Constitutional Republic.
And he is much too flawed to be a constitutionalist/conservative “savior” – not in character but in principle.
Excellent reminder. Trump is not now and never has been a righty.
Even when he occasionally steps on his dick, he is galactically better than Joe Biden.
Lincoln on Grant: “I cannot spare this man, he fights.” Same with Trump.
Grant was a flawed man who made mistakes that he rarely repeated.
Hopefully we will see what Trump does with his second term (if it is possible to keep the Dems from cheating their way into another victory).
We can be smarter than The Screaming Ds — generally not hard — should he achieve the big chair.
They couldn’t bring themselves to allow him anything that would look like a win. All we gotta do to is let him think he looks like he’s winning when he does what we want.
Trump is a hugely undisciplined politician. He has tremendous difficulty staying on message. This, and his uncanny ability to surround himself with some of the most disloyal (and often idiotic) people imaginable, are his two biggest infirmities.
Those are also aspects of his strengths
Isn’t there any principle in the law whereby the people can force prosecution of miscreants?
Perhaps someone could pull down all the names from the arrest documents and sue them in total and in part?
No. This aspect of prosecutorial discretion – the prosecutor being the sole arbiter of who is not prosecuted – is (almost) absolute; there’s some debate if the prosecutor is the sole arbiter of who is prosecuted. But, that debate is hugely contentious and unsettled. In some states, state Attorneys General may enjoy a kind of oversight over the charging decisions of local prosecutors. So, if a local/county prosecutor takes a pass, the state AG could take up the case. I’m not sure how it works in New York. It might be possible for the state AG to take over the case…which in this particular instance is likely moot because of who the state AG is ATM. Even if she has that authority, she’s never going to prosecute these miscreants either.
There are some far, far right – crazy-town right – voices who fallaciously believe there’s some ability for the public to force a prosecution through some application of a quo warranto writ…which is absurd.
In Florida, DeSantis fired a couple of prosecutors who did not prosecute people. In NY, Hochul could fire Bragg. While that would not remedy lack of prosecution of any particular case, it would tend to control the most egregious lack of prosecution situations. For example, if Bragg now got fired with a Hochul statement, “We do not tolerate anti-semitism in NY”, I think this failure to prosecute (and the events themselves) would be less likely to recur.
I think our porcine companions will be airborne before that happens.
And if it did occur again then you fire again and you keep firing until shit like this stops.
And isnt it interesting how if one of these scum went on to murder someone the next day that the prosecutor who refused to prosecute that murderer will face no sanction or punishment due to that person being on the street because of their actions.
Yet somehow the President of the United States of America has no immunity for actions carried out AS the fucking President.
Do you know for a fact Hochul can fire Bragg? In most states, that’s not true. Prosecutors are oftentimes constitutional office holders; meaning the only way they can be removed is (generally) via Impeachment by the state legislature. That’s how it works in my home state of Georgia, which is why Fani Willis is so out of control. There’s absolutely nothing the governor can do to rein her in (not that he would if he could. He’s a loser himself).
The unilaterial authority exercised by DeSantis is actually reasonably rare among US governors. The FL Constitution has created a VERY powerful Executive in their Governor.
Which is a very good thing… for now.
“In NY, Hochul could fire Bragg.”
In Europe, the Pope could convert to Scientology.
You would think (I know, I shouldn’t do that) the people could convene a grand jury.
In fact, in some states people can convene grand juries. The problem is those grand juries can only be used for fact-finding. They have no authority to actually return a true bill.
Maybe there’s a way to make that process be the punishment, too. Worth examining.
So long as the DA evaluates each case, the available evidence and the individual factors involved for each particular defendant ….yep no doubt that the DA does have discretion. However, when a prosecutor declares entire classes of criminals or categories of crimes will not be prosecuted or worse a particular outside factor, such as their immigration status, as a bar to prosecution during their tenure either de facto or de jure that isn’t, IMO, a .valid use of discretion. In those instances the DA/Prosecutor is overruling the Legislature and thus the will of the People by effectively creating a veto power he doesn’t possess.
The problem is that when prosecutors do carve out a kind of immunity for a protected class of citizens – as Bragg has essentially done here – there really isn’t any remedy available except to follow the removal procedures for those prosecutors as spelled in the their respective state constitutions. IOW, the only answer to prosecutors acting politically are themselves political answers, not legal answers (Impeachment is really a political exercise not a legal exercise}.
To borrow a phrase from Churchill, the US justice system is the worst justice system on the planet. But, it’s better than all the rest. There are other countries that have created judicial oversight agencies over prosecutorial decisions. More times than not, these agencies are then used to settle political scores and/or the power they wield creates more problems than it solves.
Impeachment is a formal option for sure but others exist. Jury nullification of every other prosecution made by that DA until they reverse course is another. Tying the DA office up in law fare is another. Strident protests in the DA offices is another. Business could close down, employers could relocate and individual Citizens can pack up and move.
There are many solutions. The other issue is the void left by failure of gov’t action. Eventually a group moves to fill that void of service. If calling the cops and the DA won’t prosecute and under their watch ‘crime DOES pay, then it is entirely possible the Citizens stop calling the cops/DA and seek an alternative but immediately effective non gov’t solution. aka call Paulie Walnuts and a couple of guys to ‘take care of it’. Not the best solution or my preferred solution but when compared to refusal of govt to act at all…it would inarguably be more effective.
Okay, New York City voters: your move.
The only “internal discipline” they will receive is more awards, support, and prestige from Columbia. It’s disgusting that this behavior is rewarded but of course it is, in the twisted world of ivy league higher education. They carried out the bidding of their radical professors and administration and will be duly rewarded for it. You can expect a whole new “encampment” to start promptly in September and be worse then the last one. Columbia won’t “get it” until they are really hurt in their pocket books, and likely this won’t happen since they are getting huge donations from Qatar, SA, UAE, China with no oversight about this foreign funding.
If you remember that all of this (Progressivism) is a religion, it’s much easier to understand.
I’m reminded of the movie “Escape from New York”. Get out or live in the swirling toilet.
We have 2 systems of justice now. One for conservatives and one for liberals. Throwing bombs at cop cars – OK if you’re protesting against white people. Vandalism and violence on campus? OK if you’re protesting against Jews (i.e.: white people)
Protesting at a school board? Abortion clinic? Arested and prosecuted ASAP. Shut down those racists.
“Manhattan DA drops charges against most of the Columbia University protesters”
Why?
They weren’t orange. Only orange man bad.
Maybe we should invest in some of that stuff the Stop Oil morons used on Stonehenge?
its actually good
now those who vote dem and see just how they continue to treat rabid blmplo fanatics with kid gloves
mightttt just change their votes away from the dnc
I understand that there is no prove that a specific person destroyed property.
I am curious whether an legal argument could be made under the conspiracy rules that would make each individual on the hook for all the crimes that were committed.
I’m not sure you even need the conspiracy laws. It’s often the case that when any damages occur in the commission of a crime (trespass of the building, minimum; breaking and entering, maximum) all involved in the crime are guilty of the crime causing the damage. This is most obvious in “felony murder” charges.
Bragg could have easily indicted them together with the idea that any one of them could be found innocent by finding they weren’t actually there at all.
NY is uniquely easy to punish just enforce laws and regulations on looted antiquities and you will see the value of NY plummet.
Just noting that in pretty much every comment thread all over the blogosphere where it was mentioned that some few of the rioters were arrested, that a lot of people said that when all was said and done the Leftist version of a judicial system would not prosecute.
Subotai Bahadur
Without even checking to see if their accountants recorded payments to a lawyer as “legal expenses”? I’m told that’s a felony these days.