Just last week, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell all but threw Columbia administrators under the bus when he admitted that the pro-Palestine student protesters the school's president had called on the NYPD to arrest "were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner."
Now that the NYPD is ramping up its use of force at campus protests, including pepper spraying protesters and at least one student journalist, Chell seems to have shaken off his brief moment of being reasonable, and is pushing the usual narrative. To wit: his testy online exchange with New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
"Not only did Columbia make the horrific decision to mobilize NYPD on their own students, but the units called in have some of the most violent reputations on the force," Ocasio-Cortez posted on X on Wednesday afternoon, remarking on a video of NYPD counterterrorism units arriving at Columbia University. She continued, "NYPD had promised the city they wouldn’t deploy SRG to protests. So why are these counterterror units here?"
"Truly amazing!" Chell countered at 6:41 a.m. on Thursday morning, posting as usual from the official NYPD Chief of Patrol account. "Columbia decided to hold its students accountable to the laws of the school." From there, Chell continued to soliloquize: "They are seeing the consequences of their actions. Something these kids were most likely never taught. Good SAT scores and self-entitlement do not supersede the law. I am sure you would agree that we have to teach them these valuable life skills."
Ah, the John Chell we all know and love is back. Now it seems the very students that Chell previously said "offered no resistance" and "were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner" were actually deploying, as he put it, "hateful anti-Semitic speech and vile language towards our cops." Journalists who have actually been to the encampment make it sound peaceful and endearingly nerdy, with rules against littering and engaging counterprotesters, and also a nut zone:
It almost makes it seem like you can just make up the idea of protesting students saying anything you want to justify violently arresting them. But Chell has a well-documented case of poster's disease (and a questionable e-commerce business run on City time). He's seemingly unable to stop his fingers from unleashing, at length, whatever thoughts are on his mind at any particular moment. (This is, admittedly, not a problem unique to Chell within the NYPD leadership.) Chell chided that Ocasio-Cortez should "rethink [her] comments to a simple thank you to the NYPD and hate has no place in our society."
Finishing with a flourish, Chell ended tirade against AOC with "Lack of accountability = consequences✅" and "Hate from anyone, anywhere has no place in our city and country.✅" Both rather rich sentiments for a cop who got away with shooting a Black man to death in 2008.
Links = informed.✅
- The Columbia University Senate might be chickening out of censuring the university's president.
- Students at FIT have also started their own Gaza solidarity encampment, joining campuses across the nation and beyond.
- The tyranny of reservation culture continues to reign over New York City: A Gothamist writer tried unsuccessfully for a month to get a reservation at Tatiana, the New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells's number one spot.
- Coming March of next year: more audio ads and celebrity voices on the subway. They should try out ads you can smell to round out the multi-sensory marketing bukkake we have to wade through on our commutes.
- Via the City: "Any adult migrant without children seeking shelter will soon be warned they will only get one 30-day stay, which can be extended under 'extenuating circumstances.' Extension requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, officials have said, and if one isn’t granted, adult migrants could be booted from City shelters permanently, with the first evictions slated for the second half of May."
- New York state seems to have mistakenly issued a license to an illicit weed shop called Budega in Queens.
- Not again, Rudy Giuliani!
- The former publisher of the National Enquirer testified that he would gather and hush up damaging gossip about Donald Trump.
- Black families face harsher penalties from the state's Office of Children & Family Services, according to a civil rights watchdog.
- A new bill wants to put cameras on Sanitation street-sweepers to nab illegal parkers.
- John Hinckley, the would-be assassin of Ronald Reagan, canceled his New York City folk music performance because fans were telling him it's a "cesspool" of crime over here.
- Mayor Eric Adams reportedly offered the head of the CCRB Arva Rice the opportunity to stay at the agency with a demotion. Insulting!
- Former (and perhaps still hopeful) mayoral candidate Scott Stringer is moving ahead with a defamation lawsuit against the woman who accused him of sexual abuse.
