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Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Wednesday, May 1st. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: New York City officials say almost 300 people are facing charges in the campus protests at City College and Columbia University. Mayor Adams continues to say that the unrest is fueled in part by professional agitators.

Mayor Adams: I know that there are those who are attempting to say whether the majority of people may have been students. You don't have to be the majority to influence and co-opt an operation.

Michael Hill: Demonstrators at Columbia had been occupying parts of their campus and Hamilton Hall until late last night when NYPD officers went in and removed them. More than 150 people who were locked up in juvenile jails are suing, saying they were sexually abused by staff members. WNYC's Bahar Ostadan has more.

Bahar Ostadan: Dozens of plaintiffs are suing city agencies saying they were sexually abused from the 1970s through last year. Their lawyers say more than 75% of the victims were men. They were sexually abused between the ages of 11 and 17 years old by correction officers, counselors, teachers, and nurses. The plaintiffs were jailed at the city's juvenile jails in the Bronx and at Rikers, which used to jail 16- and 17-year-olds. All the lawsuits were filed under a new two-year window that allows people to sue over acts of violence from many years ago.

Michael Hill: About one in five food delivery app workers in New York City report being hurt on the job. A new study also finds the same numbers say they were assaulted. CUNY researchers conducted the study and published this week in the Journal of Urban Health. Mustafa Hussein is a CUNY Health policy professor, one of the authors. He says the workers need more labor protections.

Mustafa Hussein: There is no worker compensation, there's no health insurance. There are no benefit when this happens, and the company seem to be reaping the perks and the benefits of workers' labor without carrying any of the burden.

Michael Hill: Spokespersons for food delivery apps, DoorDash and Grubhub disputed the findings and say safety is their top priority. New York City is planning to build four new skate parks in Brooklyn and the Bronx, one in Mount Prospect Park and another Brower Park in Brooklyn. Others in Bronx Park and Soundview Park in the Bronx. Tell the city what you think at four community input meetings this month, Mayor Adams talked about a nearly $25 million investment to build these skate parks in his State of the City address. A group of Brooklyn residents has been protesting the plan for Mount Prospect Park saying it needlessly reduces green space.

66 and sunny now, partly sunny and 75 this afternoon, and then tomorrow cloudy becoming sunny and warmer 84. Then on Friday, we cool off to 69. Right now, 66 and sunny in the city.

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Janae Pierre: Stay close. There's more after the break.

Michael Hill: It is still not clear how many students police arrested after storming the Columbia University campus last night in riot gear and removing pro-Palestinian protestors. Officers arrested 70 people though at City College, not that far away. WNYC's Bahar Ostadan was at Columbia late last night and she joins us now. Hi, Bahar. Tell us what you saw there on campus.

Bahar Ostadan: Sure, Michael. We spent the first several hours starting at maybe 8:00 PM tensely awaiting what might happen as hundreds and hundreds of police officers lined up outside the university's gates. By the time the sun had set, students were perched inside their off-campus apartments, peering out through their windows watching rows after rows of law enforcement vehicles, including one large military truck roll into the campus.

Unfortunately, access was very limited for press. It was very hard for the New York City Press Corps as well as student press to actually watch what was playing out as we were confined to these pens surrounded by metal barricades set up by the NYPD. Eventually, we were able to see protestors, who police had arrested, be escorted, and then bust out of the campus later at night.

Michael Hill: You talked to some of the protestors there. What did they tell you? Is the campus demonstration there, in fact, really over?

Bahar Ostadan: I doubt it, but it's hard to say, Michael. As we've talked about, the school officials have asked the NYPD to maintain a presence on campus through at least May 17th. That's a couple days after the school's main graduation. We don't know exactly what that police presence will look like, but certainly, it will make it harder for student protestors to reestablish the encampment that has been at Columbia thus far.

Certainly, the protestors have made historic moves thus far in terms of occupying a school building controversially on Monday night. That was the first time that had happened since the anti-Vietnam War protest in 1968 at Columbia.

Michael Hill: You spoke to some students, Bahar, who were not part of the protest. I'm curious, what have they said about all this disruption?

Bahar Ostadan: It's interesting. I think students, regardless of their involvement in the protests are really clear about how this has upended the daily operations of the school, especially following the very large police response last night. I came across a line of students on West 114th Street waiting to eat dinner at a makeshift dining hall because students are locked out of Columbia's campus right now for security reasons introduced or monitored rather by the NYPD, they couldn't access their dining halls.

I spoke to several low-income students who said, "We can't afford to buy food out in businesses." The student council had set up a dining hall for students to eat dinner last night. I also spoke to students who, mostly freshmen who live on campus who again were asked to leave the campus perimeter last night by police waiting outside, sleepily standing outside the gates around midnight last night, waiting to be let back in into their dormitories.

Michael Hill: City Hall, the NYPD, and Columbia all have seemed to allude to outside agitators leading the charge to break into and occupy the building. What do we know about that?

Bahar Ostadan: That's right. Mayor Eric Adams and top NYPD officials stood together earlier yesterday evening. They showed news reporters a two-minute video strung together with social media clips of the occupation of Hamilton Hall. They haven't provided much credible evidence to suggest who these people are that they're referring to. We've asked police to name the people that they're describing.

They say that some of these people are "have been known to the NYPD for several years." Though the NYPD has declined to name these people, shared details about how they've identified them, and give us a sense of, really, any sort of details about who these people might be and what role they played at Columbia. Certainly, student organizers, Columbia faculty have maintained that the majority of the presence on campus and the majority of the protests are led by the Columbia community.

Michael Hill: Bahar, quickly here, just a few seconds left. What are you expecting today on campus? Things to get back to whatever normative is?

Bahar Ostadan: I expect students will be exhausted. Those of us listening to the Columbia University Student Radio, looks like they're taking a much-needed, at least few hours off this morning. I think we'll just have to wait and see how and if the protests continue.

Michael Hill: Bahar Ostadan, late last night on the Columbia Campus. Bahar, thank you.

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Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. Also, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.

 

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