Connect with us
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=12]

International

NYPD storms protest-occupied Columbia building, several arrested

Published

3 minute read

Image courtesy of the City of New York

From The Centre Square

By 

“Early Tuesday, protesters chose to escalate to an alarming and untenable situation – including by vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows, blockading entrances, and forcing our facilities and public safety workers out – and we are responding appropriately”

Following weeks of tense standoffs between pro-Palestinian demonstrators leading to violent escalation at Columbia University, officials at the Ivy League institution finally gave the green light for the New York Police Department to enter a recently seized building, resulting in dozens of arrests.

Flanked with heavy armor, NYPD officers stormed Hamilton Hall late Tuesday night “at the University’s request.”

The university released a statement after NYPD took action, saying the decision was “made to restore safety and order to our community.”

The university said it was “left with no choice” after university public safety personnel “were forced out of the building,” by agitators. The school added that a member of their facilities teams was threatened.

“Early Tuesday, protesters chose to escalate to an alarming and untenable situation – including by vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows, blockading entrances, and forcing our facilities and public safety workers out – and we are responding appropriately as we have long made clear we would. The safety of our community, especially our students, remains our top priority,” the statement said.

The statement emphasized the school “will not risk the safety of our community or the potential for further escalation.”

The school appears to have examined all its options before calling in NYPD to help resolve the tense situation.

“The leadership team, including the Board of Trustees, met throughout the night and into the early morning, consulting with security experts and law enforcement to determine the best plan to protect our students and the entire Columbia community. We made the decision, early in the morning, that this was a law enforcement matter, and that the NYPD were best positioned to determine and execute an appropriate response,” according to the statement.

City officials, including Mayor Eric Adams and members of the NYPD, held a press briefing Tuesday night, warning Columbia students and protesters to leave the area before the situation “escalated,” pointing the blame for violence on “outside agitators” and “professional actors.”

The university echoed city officials, pointing fingers at outside agitators for the violent uprising.

“We believe that the group that broke into and occupied the building is led by individuals who are not affiliated with the University,” the statement said.

Both city and university officials warned protesters to leave the hall and area before eventual action by NYPD, using the press briefing to issue one final warning.

Videos from the chaotic scene showed several people under restraints, hulled away in a large bus.

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

More from this author

Courageous Discourse

March 2020 Intel Brief to PM Johnson: “COVID-19 WAS ENGINEERED IN WUHAN INSTITUTE OF VIROLOGY”

Published on

FOCAL POINTS (Courageous Discourse) By John Leake

Briefing from former head of SIS and other top security analysts stated unequivocally that pandemic originated at WIV, refuted fraudulent “Proximal Origins” paper by Andersen et al.

Fellow Substack author Michael Schellenberger just shared an intelligence briefing dated 27 March 2020 from Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of British intelligence, and other ranking security analysts to Prime Minister Johnson. The following is a reproduction of the first page.

In other words, Sir Richard and his team expressly told Prime Minister Boris Johnson on March 27, 2020 that SARS-CoV-2 came out of the WIV.

Note that the authors state that the Nature Medicine paper published by Andersen et al. (“The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2”) is incorrect and that:

the scale and nature of its errors and its prime source (Zhou et al) raise important further non-virological questions, including of geo-strategic and domestic security, that can be addressed separately in slower time.

We judge therefore, that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is conducting information operation to embed the natural causation narrative, and, by misdirection, and to conceal the true origin and responsibility.

We know from Andersen et al.’s private e-mail correspondence with Anthony Fauci in late February 2020 that they knew that SARS-CoV-2 was not of natural origin.

This raises an extremely pressing question: Were Kristian G. Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes, Robert F. Garry, and Anthony Fauci working for the PRC?

Sir Richard Dearlove and his colleagues raise this suspicion, because they must have known that Andersen et al. weren’t simply hoodwinked by Chinese virologists Zhou et al.

We know that Peter Daszak of EcoHealth and Professor Ralph Baric were collaborating with Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and that Anthony Fauci’s NIAID was supporting their research as well.

Setting aside questions about the legality of their research, shouldn’t all of these people be arrested and tried for the fraudulent concealment of information of vital public interest?

Prime Minister Boris Johnson chose to conceal from the British public the reality disclosed in this memo. Does British law make him immune from liability for concealing this matter of vital public interest from the British people? Note that Johnson also took decisive action to sabotage peace talks between Ukraine and Russian in Turkey in March 2022.

Should the British people trust Johnson’s representations about the conflict between Ukraine and Russia—representations that have been endorsed by his successor, Keir Starmer? For all the British people know, Johnson received security briefings about this conflict that contradict what he has told them about the war.

Then there’s the abominable mainstream media in the U.S. and Britain that characterized everyone who pointed out the obvious indications of the lab origin as “conspiracy theorists.”

The New York Times just published an ass-covering Opinion titled “We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives”—as though the Times editors someone managed to remain ignorant about the mountain of evidence of this until now.

The disclosure of this British intelligence memo comes on the heels of almost identical disclosures about the German government of Angela Merkel. As investigative journalist Michael Nevradakis just reported in the CHD Defender:

Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, determined with 80%-95% certainty in 2020 that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic originated with a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China — but successive governments kept the information “under lock and key,” according to a German investigative report.

The report, published jointly on Wednesday by Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung, was the result of an 18-month investigation.

The investigation found that in 2020, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel commissioned a BND operation code-named “Project Saaremaa” that targeted Chinese agencies and research institutions.

When the BND’s investigation concluded that a Wuhan lab leak was the most likely source of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Merkel government prohibited the spy agency from releasing its results to the public.

When Mr. Nevradakis asked me what I thought about the German disclosure, I told him the following:

The revelation that German intelligence knew that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from a lab, and was not of natural origin, is no surprise, given the vast amount of evidence that the pathogen was not zoonotic. It’s also not surprising that the Merkel government decided to conceal the spy agency’s findings.

The BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) has long worked very closely with the CIA, and the Merkel government consistently complied with Washington’s directives. Concealment of the lab origin of SARS-CoV-2 is consistent with the German government’s concealment of Paul Ehrlich Institute’s assessments about many elements of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For over three years, Dr. Peter McCullough and I have expressed our conviction that the cover-up of the lab origin of SARS-CoV-2 is the greatest organized crime in history. The latest revelations about the BND and the Merkel government confirm our long held suspicions.

For a full copy of the March 27, 2020 Security Briefing to Prime Minister Johnson, click HERE.

Share

Continue Reading

Catherine Herridge

How ‘Woke’ Broke The FB

Published on

 Author  Catherine Herridge

We Obtain Internal FBI DEI Guide On Managing Unconscious Bias

TOP LINE  
An internal FBI inclusivity “Guide,” obtained by our investigative team, counseled agents on “Ways to Manage Your Unconscious Bias,” “Micro-Inequities” and “How to Improve Your Inclusive Intelligence.”
“The New IQ: Your Guide to Sustaining Inclusive Habits in the Workplace” was widely shared in mid-2020 and includes nine “tips” to counter unconscious bias.
Separately, as part of our investigation, recently retired FBI agents said they saw, firsthand, how law enforcement capabilities were compromised because merit took a backseat to DEI priorities.
They dubbed the legendary FBI Quantico Training Academy the “Participation Academy” because of headquarter’s pressure to “push through” poorly performing candidates to meet their DEI objectives.
The retired agents said FBI Director Patel inherits a workforce where standards dropped impacting physical fitness of agents, their firearms skills as well as professional qualifications, putting the FBI mission and safety at risk.
DEEP DIVE
More than a half dozen recently retired FBI agents agreed to speak with me on a confidential basis.  They said they feared retaliation for describing their experiences with the FBI’s DEI initiatives. While fiercely loyal to the bureau, they said they felt compelled to come forward, citing a dangerous reduction in standards that they believe endanger agents and the public.
The group of retired agents was diverse.  It included male, female, Asian, Black and White agents from field offices in different parts of the country.  Their work experience covered multiple facets of the recruitment and training process. Everyone I spoke with offered a first hand account of DEI’s impact.
FBI DEI Guide Defines “Unconscious Bias”
The retired agents told me they valued diversity because it could strengthen the FBI mission but in recent years, the agents said FBI leadership took the attitude the bureau was “too White.”   The decline, they said, began under FBI Director Mueller who made the DC Headquarters his focus.  They said it accelerated under FBI Director Comey. They blamed Director Wray for standing by as the “train wreck happened.”
“Ways To Manage Your Unconscious Bias”
I was told that the physical fitness performance of candidates declined. The requirements include timed sit-ups (1 minute), timed 300-m sprint, untimed push-up maximum and timed 1.5 mile run.
The retired agents described recruits who had an “attitude problem.” The recruits would quit the long distance run or claim injuries if they thought they would not pass a requirement.   The number of successfully completed push ups was routinely low because many recruits didn’t have the skill or strength to follow the required protocol (i.e bad form, not low enough.)
What I learned about firearms training was also concerning.  I was told some recruits lacked the “mental toughness” to competently handle guns. Other candidates had documented mental health issues.  While their performance was poor, there was a “push them through Quantico attitude.”
The backbone of FBI investigations is a witness interview summary known as a “302.”  In some cases, new agents lacked basic writing skills to complete a 302, in part, because work experience requirements had been relaxed.  Once poor performing recruits were “pushed through Quantico,” the hope was that FBI Field Offices would fix them.
While the retired agents said diversity was valuable to the bureau it had taken precedence over merit. They said they looked up to the FBI when they joined and are hopeful Director Patel can restore and reverse this decline.
These retired FBI agents are solution oriented and respectfully asked if Director Patel would be willing to meet with them because they understand where the change needs to happen internally.
Describing how “woke broke the FBI,” one of the agents shared the wrenching personal decision to discourage their child from following in their professional footsteps. Something that would have been inconceivable during most of their time with the Bureau.
FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said, ““Director Patel’s new FBI will be an entirely mission focused institution — working every day to get criminals off our streets, keep the American people safe, and let good agents be good agents. We are aggressively working to abide by any Presidential directive to root out politically motivated, social engineering projects — they have zero home here and never will as long as Director Patel is at the helm.”

We are making this exclusive reporting free.  

The full FBI DEI workplace guide is available to our subscribers.

Catherine Herridge Reports

Subscribe to our premium content to read the rest.

Become a paying subscriber to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.
Subscribe to Catherine Herridge Reports

 

Continue Reading

Trending

X