Gregory Pflugfelder had just finished the last course of his career at Columbia University. During his 28 years at the university, he earned many honors as a professor of history, primarily teaching a popular course on Japanese monsters that focused on Godzilla and “the role of monsters in the cultural imagination.”
He didn’t know it, but some kind of cultural monster would soon be arriving at his doorstep.
The following Tuesday night, the 64-year-old silver-haired academic stepped outside his apartment building off campus, across the street from Columbia University. He wanted to record iPhone video of hundreds of police responding to historic student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. Fifteen minutes later, the NYPD arrested him.
New York City police listed Pflugfelder among 112 people arrested in Columbia on Tuesday night, according to police records obtained by USA TODAY. But Pflugfelder was not on campus.
“I certainly wasn’t a danger to anyone,” he told USA TODAY. “I was literally standing in the street and not bothering anyone.”
As protests and protests against the war in Gaza spread to U.S. campuses, universities and police are increasingly pointing to “external agitators” and off-campus disruptors as the insurgents behind campus unrest. There is. Pragfelder’s arrest was the first of 282 people detained near Columbia University and the City University of New York during police raids on charges of obstruction of government. The arrests fuel allegations that police used heavy-handed tactics to quell mostly peaceful demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war.
Columbia University referred questions about the professor’s arrest to the New York City Police Department. Neither the NYPD nor New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office responded to email requests from USA TODAY.
Live updates:The NYPD says an officer fired a gun at the Columbia campus.New York University, New School protests subside
“historical mistake”
Pragfelder’s last class, Introduction to Japanese Civilization, is a course he has taught since he began teaching at Columbia University in 1996. He teaches only at Ivy League schools. His plan for Tuesday was to do “absolutely nothing,” he recalled. This includes reading and watching the Hulu show “Shogun.”
In the afternoon, the sounds of a protest could be heard around the corner from an apartment building on West 114th Street. His apartment building is across the street from campus, where demonstrators have gathered and formed encampments for weeks demanding the university divest from Israel.
He was aware of the increased police response following protests at Columbia University on April 18, when police arrested more than 100 people at a camp in the center of campus. Police buses blocked the streets of Pflugfelder and took protesters to NYPD headquarters.
He supported students’ right to demonstrate. He wrote a letter to Columbia University President Minoush Shafik asking the NYPD to respond to the encampment on campus. It was his first time writing a letter to the president’s office. “I urge you not to make historic mistakes worse by repeating them,” he wrote on April 23.
A week later, on Tuesday, he felt history was being made again and wanted to record it. He left his apartment building and recorded a video on his iPhone.
He estimated that by about 9 p.m., hundreds of police wearing helmets and batons were lined up on the streets. He recorded videos of students forcibly entering fraternity and dormitory buildings and knocking on windows. Then he turned to the street. There, police were lining up ahead of the campus siege.
At most, he said, he was standing 7 feet above the curb and above the road. Police ordered him inside, but he told them his address was about 300 feet down the block. They told him to go home, but he said he wanted to continue recording. The officer said, “Okay, put him down,” Pflugfelder recalled, but did not push him to the ground. Despite this, he ended up being handcuffed with zip ties.
“I stayed on my block and was relatively well-behaved,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s in a bad location.”
He reportedly told the arresting female police officer, “This is my first time arresting a teacher.” She reportedly replied, “This is for your protection.”
Police response to New York City schools showed “precision enforcement,” Adams says.
Mayor Adams said police acted with professionalism in making mass arrests on campus, which included police using SWAT vehicles to enter Hamilton Hall, an occupied Columbia building. Ta.
“Thanks to the NYPD’s excellent security, the operation was organized and peaceful, with no injuries or violent confrontations,” Adams told reporters on Wednesday, the day after his arrest.
But Jenvine Wong, supervising attorney for the nonprofit Legal Aid Society’s Police Accountability Project, said Pflugfelder’s arrest raises questions about whether the NYPD escalated the situation rather than de-escalating it. He said there was. It also may have violated laws that protect the public’s right to record their interactions with police.
“Generally speaking, there is still a First Amendment right to record in public as long as it does not interfere with law enforcement,” Wong told USA TODAY. “To me, this seems like a wrongful arrest.”
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Pflugfelder said he was the third person arrested in the NYPD van. Ten people packed into the van that took him downtown. Pflugfelder, who is 6 feet 5 inches tall, said he felt cramped. He also has “claustrophobic” tendencies, and while he was in the car he asked others to help distract him from his emotions, and they asked about his classes. . He gathered, based on his questions during his ride, that most of the people in the car were students at Columbia University.
At NYPD headquarters, he was in a holding cell with about 60 other people. He stayed there for about 5 hours. One person next to him on the bench, from Columbia, said he was at Hamilton Hall, where police used flash-bang grenades to storm the occupied school building and where police accidentally opened fire inside. The man Pflugfelder saw had a black mark on his eye.
“The violence against the protesters was extreme,” Corinna Marin, an adjunct assistant professor of political science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York, said at a recent news conference. Mr. Mullin was among those arrested at City College on Tuesday night.
Conclusions drawn and data collection
Police released Pflugfelder from custody around 5 a.m. and gave him a ticket to appear in Manhattan Criminal Court on May 20. He called an Uber and went home, but he has found it difficult to rest since then. He has not yet contacted university authorities. He’s not looking forward to it.
“I’m not going to put myself in a weak position against an institution that attacks me,” he said.
Eileen Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, said her organization has some first-hand witness accounts of needlessly violent and disproportionate responses to protests that began peacefully. Stated.
Mulvey, a mathematician and professor emeritus at Fairfield University in Connecticut, said the information released by police, including the number of “outside agitators,” does not answer important questions about the basis for sending police to college campuses, including Columbia University. He said he had not answered. Police responded to Columbia primarily because outsiders indoctrinated the students with their training and ideology, but authorities have so far released little evidence.
“Scientists, we collect data and draw conclusions,” she told USA TODAY. “In this case, it appears that a conclusion was drawn and data was collected, which may or may not be justified.”
Pflugfelder has been a teacher for nearly 30 years, but he still hasn’t had the relaxing days he was looking for. In prison, police forced him to remove the laces of his black and white Vessi sneakers. Since then, I have left my shoelaces untied as a reminder.
Contributor: Mike James, USA TODAY
