NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – NYPD officials said Friday that they have no plan to release the body camera footage from the Emergency Services Unit officer who accidentally discharged his gun as police raided Columbia University's Hamilton Hall Tuesday night to clear out pro-Palestinian protesters who'd occupied the building.
The NYPD first confirmed the accidental discharge Thursday, saying the department gave the body cam footage to the Manhattan D.A.'s Office.
In their statement, police noted that no one was struck by the bullet or otherwise injured, and that no one other than police personnel was in the immediate vicinity at the time.
The incident was confirmed after reports emerged Thursday about a shot being fired during the raid; officials from City Hall and the NYPD didn't mention it during a Wednesday news conference about the operation.
Speaking Friday from police headquarters, Tarik Sheppard, the NYPD's deputy commissioner for public information, said of the video, "The D.A. has it, and we don't have any intention of releasing bodycam on an accidental discharge."
"We never do that," Sheppard continued, "and I don't think we're going to do that here just because it's newsworthy."
Sheppard said the department averages about eight accidental discharges a year and that they almost never make the news. Pressed by reporters on why the incident wasn't addressed Wednesday, when Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD brass praised the police operation as a success, Sheppard said "it's a joint decision."
"The newsworthiness is not the only thing that the police department has to think about," he added.
The NYPD has previously released bodycam video of police breaching Hamilton Hall, as well as a video montage of scenes inside the building.
NYPD Assistant Chief Carlos Valdez, the commanding officer of ESU, said the officer in question has been a sergeant in ESU for almost eight years and has an "impeccable record."
The officer accidentally fired the gunshot as police swarmed the Columbia campus late Tuesday at the request of university leaders, who had been dealing with disruptive protests and encampments for more than a week.
"Moving forward, we will obviously counsel the officer, and send him to retraining, and evaluate him, and we'll take it from there," Valdez said. "He's a very experienced officer in the unit."
According to Valdez and a statement from police, the discharge occurred as ESU officers were attempting to gain entry to a locked, first-floor office in the building during the raid around 9 p.m.
Detained protesters are seen with police officers in an NYPD bus near the Columbia University campus on April 30, 2024.Jeff Bachner/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Valdez said ESU had broken the non-transparent window on a door of the office to gain entry, and as the officer in question was attempting to reach through the hole in the glass to unlock the door from the inside, "he transitioned his firearm from his dominant right hand to his non-dominant left hand."
"When the sergeant transitioned his firearm to his non-dominant hand, he began to use his dominant hand to gain entry through the window, which is when the unintentional discharge occurred," the chief continued. "The bullet traveled through the office glass and into the office they were attempting to gain access to."
The round ultimately struck a frame in the wall a few feet away. The officer immediately assessed his team to make sure no one was injured, Valdez said.
Valdez noted that the "situation was fluid, and at certain times under low light conditions." An earlier statement from police also described the officer as using a firearm equipped with a flashlight for illumination "to find the best way to navigate through the barricaded area."
The mayor has said there were "no injuries or violent clashes" during Tuesday's operation. The 40 to 50 people arrested at Hamilton Hall were among more than 100 arrested at Columbia that night. More than 100 others were arrested at the nearby campus of the City College of New York.
The protests have continued at other universities in the city and beyond in the days since. Dozens of encamped protesters were arrested Friday morning at NYU and the New School in Greenwich Village. Nationwide, the number of arrests at campuses has surpassed 2,300, according to a tally from the Associated Press.
