A police sergeant’s gun “by chance” fired inside a Columbia College constructing the place officers had been eradicating pro-Palestinian protesters from the campus this week, the New York Police Division stated on Friday.
The sergeant had damaged the glass of a locked workplace on the primary ground of the constructing and switched his firearm — a 9-millimeter handgun with a flashlight mounted on it — from his proper hand to his left hand to achieve by way of the damaged glass to unlock the door from the within, stated Carlos Valdez, assistant chief of the Emergency Companies Unit.
As he switched fingers, the gun went off. The bullet traveled by way of the glass, hit a body of a wall and landed on the ground, the police stated.
“After the firearm discharged, the sergeant instantly assessed his workforce and ensured that no one was injured,” Chief Valdez stated. “The workforce gained entry to the workplace and located that no one was inside.”
All the protesters had been moved to 1 space of the primary ground, however the police didn’t know on the time whether or not anybody was inside the locked workplace earlier than they entered, officers stated on Friday.
The unidentified officer, who Chief Valdez stated was “very skilled” and had been a sergeant with the unit for eight years, will obtain coaching and be re-evaluated, he stated.
The taking pictures was captured on the officer’s physique digicam, which was handed over to the Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace. Storming the constructing was a “massive scale, complicated and dynamic” operation, Chief Valdez stated, and officers needed to navigate by way of areas with low gentle.
The episode didn’t come to gentle till Thursday, when The Metropolis, an area information group, revealed an article reporting {that a} shot had been fired inside Hamilton Corridor on Tuesday as law enforcement officials cleared the Columbia campus of protesters.
It was the second time in two weeks that Columbia officers requested the police to enter the Manhattan campus to take away demonstrators. The selection to have the police intervene has divided the college group and earned officers each reward and criticism.
On Friday, greater than 700 individuals attended a gathering of Columbia’s College Senate, a policymaking physique made up of school members, college students and others, and lots of expressed a insecurity in college management.
Jeanine D’Armiento, chair of the senate, stated the group’s government committee had really helpful the college proceed negotiations with college students as an alternative of calling the police. However, she stated, “We weren’t requested for our opinion.”
On Friday, Tarik Sheppard, the Police Division’s deputy commissioner of public info, defended the division’s resolution to not share any details about the gunshot at a information convention on Wednesday. Officers, together with the mayor, knew concerning the gunshot earlier than the briefing at which they mentioned clearing protesters at Columbia and Metropolis School, he stated.
“We might have talked about it, however I don’t recollect it arising organically in that press convention,” Commissioner Sheppard stated, including that nobody had requested about it and: “I knew it’ll come up ultimately, as a result of it at all times does.”
Though the sweep of the occupied constructing and mass arrests at Columbia could have been an “operation that individuals had been watching across the nation,” officers didn’t really feel that the gunshot was “irregular” sufficient to share with the general public, he stated.
The constructing, Hamilton Corridor, has been the location of scholar protests for the reason that Nineteen Sixties. Columbia has stated that it had no selection however to name the police in on Tuesday, to finish a tense 24 hours on campus after talks between college officers and protesters fell aside and Hamilton Corridor was forcibly occupied.
The police arrested greater than 100 people who night time on the campus and out of doors the gates of the college.
The protests at dozens of campuses across the nation have been largely peaceable, however greater than 2,000 individuals have been arrested. College officers have argued that they’re attempting to stability free speech protections and safety on campus.
Anna Betts and Karla Marie Sanford contributed reporting.
