Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal outdoors of Columbia College.
Picture by Dean Moses
A number of elected officers gathered outdoors of Columbia College on Monday afternoon, demanding disclosure of bodycam and safety footage from final week’s ICE arrest of pupil Ellie Aghayeva.
The pols need interim Columbia College President Claire Shipman to launch surveillance footage and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to offer officers bodycam footage of the on-campus arrests involving ICE brokers.
Aghayeva, a local of Azerbaijan, was taken into custody by ICE brokers on Feb. 26; witnesses stated the brokers falsely recognized themselves to realize entry to the campus. The coed was later launched after Mayor Zohran Mamdani instantly appealed to President Donald Trump throughout their Oval Workplace assembly that day.
On March 2, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Assemblymember Micah Lasher, and others stood on West 116th Road and Broadway and charged that they needed to see the video of precisely what occurred through the ICE operation at Columbia.
“We know from the message that acting president of Columbia, Claire Shipmen, sent to the community, that Columbia has security footage of the ICE agents entering the building and making false claims about why they were there,” Lasher stated. “It is in the public interest to know how they lied, what they said, whether they presented false identification, whether they brandished a missing child poster, and all of what happened leading up to the abduction of Ellie, we needed to understand if there is criminal liability on the part of the ICE agents, whether they broke the law.”
Columbia College didn’t instantly reply for remark. Beforehand, faculty officers acknowledged that the brokers had pretended to be looking for a lacking little one to be able to enter the varsity.
Assemblymember Micah Lasher. Picture by Dean Moses
In line with Shipman, “armed” brokers acknowledged that they “were taking our student now and they could do it the easy way or the hard way.”
Through the course of, NYPD officers had been additionally referred to as to the scene for a report of “two suspicious males,” however left once they recognized the lads as ICE brokers.
Hoylman-Sigal acknowledged that, within the curiosity of transparency, he’s additionally demanding the discharge of the cops’ body-worn cameras.
“Another question that has to be answered: Did Colombia cooperate with ICE? We don’t know the answer to that. We hope the answer is no, but the security footage will prove that. Did the NYPD cooperate with ICE? We trust the answer is no, but show us the body cam and the security footage. The chaos and confusion of the Trump administration has filtered down to this campus because we don’t have clarity as to what happened,” Hoylman-Sigal stated.
In line with the NYPD, when officers arrived, they verified the federal agent’s standing, then instantly left the placement and didn’t work together with Aghayeva.
“NYPD officers followed the correct protocol and guidelines when interacting with Federal Officers,” an NYPD spokesperson stated.
Nonetheless, the elected officers say they’re demanding the discharge of each the safety footage and the physique cameras.
“We’re not here to criticize either Colombia or the NYPD for not yet having released the footage, but certainly the release of the footage on an expeditious basis would serve the public interest, and that’s what we’re here to say,” Lasher stated. “So we can understand if there were things that Colombia might have done differently, systems that might have been in place, that could have protected Ellie.”
