Q&A
Council member questions CUNY's response to City College incident
4:09:05
·
76 sec
Council Member Kalman Yeger inquires about the incident at City College, questioning the lack of action by CUNY public safety officers during the event. The student, Gideon Askowitz, explains that officers were not given the resources or permission to intervene effectively.
- Askowitz reveals that campus police were denied permission to address the escalating situation
- The district attorney, Alvin Bragg, was involved in planning the policing strategy
- Officers were eventually allowed to intervene, but only after several days of the encampment
Kalman Yeger
4:09:05
Thank you very much, mister chairman.
4:09:07
What the, incident that you spoke about at, City College, I'm sure you were here earlier in the morning when the chancellor testified that, nothing to see here, no biggie, all outside, whatever.
4:09:18
Did you happen to notice at any time a CUNY public safety officer approached any of these, terrorists and, asked them to lower their masks or perhaps show a little plastic card?
Gideon Askowitz
4:09:30
Not only was that not an option, they couldn't do it because they weren't given the resources to do so.
4:09:35
They had asked and tried working with the president of City College in advance to address the issue that they knew was getting worse on their campus, and they were denied to do so in part because of the president of the university, but also because they were working hand in hand with the DA, Alvin Bragg, who had worked out a scheme in terms of how they were gonna scale up their policing and how they were gonna then address the, the incidents.
4:09:57
Actually, the damages that were caused from that encampment, Alvin Bragg offered them most of them a plea deal, which was a sweetheart deal.
4:10:04
Officers were assaulted and and injured during when they ultimately were given permission to go into the campus several days into the encampment after I and other people were prohibited from accessing the campus.
4:10:14
So it's actually a bigger issue.
4:10:15
It's not only they're not they're not just not ID ing, they're not doing any of the things that they should be doing and doing so often willfully.
