Students, faculty, parents, and police are at odds over an alleged antisemitic incident that took place inside Cooper Union College on Oct. 26, leading to threats of lawsuits and criminal complaints.
According to students and sources with knowledge of the incident, a group of about 20 pro-Palestine students barged their way into the East 7th Street building on Wednesday and protested outside of the college president’s office for several minutes. After the demonstration had concluded, the students returned to the ground floor and were passing a library in which several Jewish students were gathered. Staff apparently closed the doors, leading to the protesters hammering on the doors, which could be seen in footage obtained by amNewYork Metro.
“We saw a gang of students who were protesting outside, came into a school, and held Jewish students captive in the library,” attorney Gerard Filitti said outside of Cooper Union one day after the incident. “The problem yesterday is part of the systemic problem of Jew hatred that we’ve seen in New York City and across the U.S.”
Filitti stood alongside Councilmember Inna Vernikov and dozens of concerned parents and pro-Israel demonstrators in calling for the school and those who pounded on the doors to be held accountable, charging that the Jewish students were terrified. However, others who were there are pushing back, stating that the situation is being blown out of proportion.
“This is fake news; this is not what happened! I was there, this is not what happened!” One student yelled, who refused to give her name, interrupting the attorney. “You are perpetrating fake news; I will not let this happen in my school.”
While enraged parents are calling the incident an attempted antisemitic assault, leaving students too afraid to attend class, sources who were inside the school at the time are relaying a different narrative, telling amNewYork Metro that the doors to the library were never locked meaning the protesters could have entered at any time. The source also reported that faculty offered to help evacuate the students through another door, but they refused and stayed in the library.
Filitti and Vernikov are not only taking aim at the protesting students but also Cooper Union President Laura Sparks for allowing the protest to take place and NYPD for taking some 40 minutes to respond. However, this narrative is also coming into question.
According to police sources, there were several NYPD officers inside the school since the protest began and during the incident no students were physically harmed, and no property was damaged.
“There were no direct threats, there was no damage, and there was no danger to any students in that school. Our cops were there all day,” Chief of Patrol John Chell said.
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