A group of pro-Palestine protesters chased a New York Police Department chief into an NYU campus building on Monday night as the demonstrators demanded that he and other officers released a woman in their custody.
Video of the incident shared online shows assistant chief James McCarthy being loudly berated by the protesters as he tries to get inside the NYU Catholic Center. McCarthy struggles and ultimately fails to open a door to the building as shouts of “you fucking fascist” and “fuck you pigs” can be heard from the group surrounding the officers.
The protesters also chant “let her go” in reference to a handcuffed woman appearing to be being restrained by one officer in riot gear. When the police take the woman around the building to another entrance, the protesters follow, continuing to demand her release and shouting “free Palestine.”
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The officers eventually make it inside with the woman in custody, leaving the protesters outside chanting: “Shame!”
An NYPD spokesman told the New York Daily News that McCarthy and the other officers had been trying to work out where to take the detained woman when they first went to the wrong location, at which point McCarthy radioed for information about where to go. An unnamed high-ranking NYPD official told the newspaper that McCarthy, the head of Patrol Borough Manhattan South, did not feel threatened, and that his borough “has handled more protests than any other.”
Scores of people were arrested at NYU on Monday as police broke up demonstrations. More arrests and clashes with law enforcement have since erupted at other campuses across the U.S. this week as students attempt to pile pressure on colleges to cut ties with companies supplying the Israeli military during its war against Hamas in Gaza.
