Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg dropped charges on Thursday against most of the Columbia University protesters who were arrested for trespassing in Hamilton Hall in April.
Nearly 50 people were charged with criminal trespassing after they staged a multi-day protest on the Manhattan campus of the Ivy League school. But 31 of those cases were dismissed on Thursday due to a lack of evidence, according to NBC News. Prosecutors said another 14 of the 46 cases will be dismissed if the defendants do not have any other arrests in the next six months.
The court said the person who will remain charged is James Carlson, who has two other separate cases opened against him. One of those charges is flag burning, and he is not associated with Columbia University.
Hundreds of protesters initially engaged in the protests, which was centered on the U.S. response to the war in Israel. But the 46 who were charged had illegally occupied Hamilton Hall towards the end of the protest, despite warnings that they were trespassing. Of the 46 charged, at least 14 were undergraduate students at Columbia, nine were graduate students, and two were employees.Â
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Ruth King
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, http://www.ruthfullyyours.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.