By Gus Saltonstall
Investigations by police and Columbia University public safety officials are underway this week after multiple reports that a powerful chemical was sprayed on students participating in a pro-Palestinian demonstration on the Columbia campus.
After the incident, which allegedly took place Friday on the steps of Low Library at the Morningside Heights campus, more than two dozen students reported a foul smell (“poop mixed with decaying animal,” one student told the student newspaper Columbia Spectator) and symptoms such as nausea and headaches that led at least eight students to seek medical attention.
NYPD confirmed on Monday that an assault report has been filed alleging protesters had been sprayed with an unidentified chemical, and that the investigation remains ongoing.
In an email obtained by West Side Rag, Interim Provost Dennis Mitchell told the Columbia community that campus security was working with the police to investigate the “deeply troubling incident.”
The email adds that the university “received additional information Sunday night. As a result, the alleged perpetrators identified to the University were immediately banned from campus while the law enforcement investigation proceeds.”
Mitchell’s email did not specify whether the alleged perpetrators are students, people affiliated with the university, or outside actors. To date, no arrests have been reported.
The school has urged people to submit photos, videos, and clothing that may have been sprayed to Columbia’s Department of Public Safety and the NYPD to help with the investigation.
Maryam Iqbal, an 18-year-old Barnard student who participated in the protest, told the New York Times that about halfway through the demonstration, which had been nonviolent, a “horrible smell” described as “raw sewage and dead mouse” started blanketing the group.
Another student told the Times that two men she did not recognize had been confrontational with the demonstrators and had seemed “especially aggressive” toward students carrying signs reading “Jews for cease-fire.”
The student added that she was still vomiting as of Monday and couldn’t get the odor out of her clothes and hair, despite taking more than 10 showers.
West Side Rag will update this story when more is learned, including the findings from the ongoing police investigation.
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Hundreds of students call for intifada and hail Houthis at Columbia University.
Columbia University is not what it used to be!
Thats not even remotely true. Read the article.
Plenty of videos of yesterday’s unsanctioned protest at Columbia University are posted online – including The Columbia Spectator.
I am concerned.
I always thought people came to the US to avoid this sort of religious attack, especially students trying to get an education. This sentiment should be directed at governments by students, not each other or the university, who have nothing to do with starting or escalating the conflict.
Universities should ban all demonstrations
in or on campus.
You’re saying ban freedom of assembly? The university is the exact place one should assemble.
Sounds good, but it is against the Constitution..
This is not an entirely true statement. At public universities any restrictions on demonstrations must comply with the First Amendment. Private colleges are generally not bound by First Amendment concerns and can restrict free speech as they determine, even if that private university receives public funding.
Two Israeli war vets sprayed a toxic chemical on students. Most of them were ironically Jewish students.
No one has shown evidence that this was in fact a “toxic chemical.” Nor a “weapon of war.” You can buy sprays that have offensive odors on Amazon and elsewhere. They smell nasty but are not weapons and are not otherwise harmful. So let’s not buy the propaganda they’re selling without a bit of actual investigation first, eh?
That’s not what the article reads. No one knows who did it, but please, blame the Jews (she says sarcastically). And what are Israeli war vets doing in the United States when logically they would still be in Israel, fighting a war, no? Call me cynical, but blaming it on Israeli war vets sounds like typical propaganda to me. As far as anyone knows, it could be anyone.
They are vets. They are grad students at Columbia. Columbia has identified them to police.
Please tell me you aren’t lending credence to the story published on the obviously propagandist website called the World Socialist Web Site. It might as well be called Disinformation R Us or PsyOps For Cheap. Unreal. Literally.
This incident is still under investigation. Nobody has been charged or accused.
You have no source for your comment and stop posting inflammatory hate speech you know is a lie.
Waiting for demonstrations to release the Jewish hostages from the astute and fair “Students At Columbia” 🙄
My first reaction is that a smell of that kind is just a typical day in NYC. Smelling fecal matter and decaying rodents is not infrequent regardless of the situation. Spraying people with chemicals is of course unacceptable but there have been no arrests, no confirmed evidence or photo/videos of the alleged incident. People accused of the purported assault have been banned from campus which as a private institution Columbia has every right to do, but no one has been arrested, named as persons of interest or even vaguely described in the coverage of the supposed “attack”. If the allegations are true then the guilty parties should face the full weight of the law, but the amount of lies, misinformation and purposeful disinformation surrounding the Gaza conflict should dictate a healthy dose of skepticism until actual proof and judicial action becomes a reality.