Several elected officials gathered outside of Columbia University on Monday afternoon, demanding disclosure of bodycam and security footage from last week’s ICE arrest of student Ellie Aghayeva.
The pols want interim Columbia University President Claire Shipman to release surveillance footage and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to provide officers bodycam footage of the on-campus arrests involving ICE agents.
Aghayeva, a native of Azerbaijan, was taken into custody by ICE agents on Feb. 26; witnesses said the agents falsely identified themselves to gain access to the campus. The student was later released after Mayor Zohran Mamdani directly appealed to President Donald Trump during their Oval Office meeting that day.
On March 2, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Assemblymember Micah Lasher, and others stood on West 116th Street and Broadway and charged that they wanted to see the video of exactly what took place during the ICE operation at Columbia.
“We know from the message that acting president of Columbia, Claire Shipman, 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 said. “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.”
Previously, Columbia officials stated that the agents had pretended to be searching for a missing child in order to enter the school.
In an emiail to amNewYork Monday, a university spokesperson said it appreciates the support of elected officials, but cannot break from its policy of not releasing footage “without a lawfully issued subpoena.”
“The University maintains that the misrepresentations made by federal agents to gain entry to the building were unacceptable,” the Columbia spokesperson said. “We have reminded our community that law enforcement agents must present a judicial warrant or judicial subpoena to access non-public areas of the University, including housing, classrooms, and areas requiring CUID swipe access. All Columbia Residential staff and security personnel have been reminded of the University’s protocol for handling interactions with law enforcement.”
According to Shipman, “armed” agents stated that they “were taking our student now and they could do it the easy way or the hard way.”
During the process, NYPD officers were also called to the scene for a report of “two suspicious males,” but left when they identified the men as ICE agents.
Hoylman-Sigal stated that, in the interest of transparency, he is also demanding the release 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 said.
According to the NYPD, when officers arrived, they verified the federal agent’s status, then immediately left the location and did not interact with Aghayeva.
“NYPD officers followed the correct protocol and guidelines when interacting with Federal Officers,” an NYPD spokesperson said.
Still, the elected officials say they are demanding the release of both the security footage and the body 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 said. “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.”
