As the weekslong protests on city campuses go from the streets to the courts, the person ultimately responsible for those prosecutions is entering a political and logistical minefield.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg should be used to that by now.
The progressive prosecutor who is responsible for almost all the cases involving protesters thus far is already a regular target for tough-on-crime conservatives. The encampments at Columbia, the City College of New York, Fordham at Lincoln Center and NYU where police have made arrests this week were all located on Bragg’s turf in Manhattan.
Encampments protesting the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza have spread to college campuses across the country, drawing recrimination from the mayor, the NYPD, national conservatives and Jewish leaders concerned about antisemitism and student safety.
Whether or not Bragg decides to pursue, change or drop charges against the protesters, his decision is likely to spark criticism from across the political spectrum.
“The optics of trying a protest case are never good,” said attorney Remy Green, who has represented protesters in lawsuits against the city in the past.
The Manhattan DA’s office and NYPD have released a detailed list of preliminary charges resulting from this week’s campus arrests. Crimes range from misdemeanors such as trespassing to felonies such as burglary. Protesters in just a handful of cases are facing more serious charges, including assault and weapons possession.
At a press conference earlier this week, Bragg said prosecutors will decide how to proceed after reviewing all the available evidence, including watching body camera footage.
“As my office does in every instance in all of our work, we will look carefully at each individual case on our docket and make decisions based on the facts and the law,” he said.
Protest precedent
It’s common for prosecutors to dismiss cases after mass arrests at protests, said Green, who added that thousands of…
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