Formerly administrators at Columbia University called the police on the students protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the Fox News crowd started foaming at the mouth calling for teenagers to be beaten or killed, you knew it was only a matter of time before someone ended up in the hospital. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case now, as someone reported drove his car into the crowd protesters. The person hit by the driver was later taken to hospital by ambulance.
According to Talia Jane’s reports, who is Jewish, during a protest in front of the house of a Columbia board member, Reuven Kahane, a local developer, initially approached a group of protesters and asked for a leaflet. When someone offered it to him, he instead grabbed his arm and drove away. Kahane then drove his Volvo around the block, occasionally veering toward the sidewalk, before turning his car toward the protesters themselves.
An escalator rider at the end of the march tried to get Kahane to wait, but he hit her with his car anyway. A second de-escalator then sat in front of his car to prevent him from driving into the crowd, but was later arrested. The person who fell down the escalator first called an ambulance because of an injury to her leg. Kahane was also arrested and the injured escalator was taken to hospital.
Independent journalist Marisa Kabas has since confirmed that Reuven Kahane has been arrested by the NYPD. He is currently charged with second-degree assault, which is a felony. Kabas also confirmed that the person who hit the escalator was a 55-year-old woman, now charged with criminal damage and unlawful assembly, while the person who was in front of Kahane’s car has been charged with a crime. The safety/de-escalation team reportedly consisted entirely of non-student volunteers.
Jane also claims to have seen a video of a commander calling protesting students “fucking morons” and saying “as an adult, there will be consequences,” as if it was somehow their fault that someone tried to crash into their march with a car . As a reminder: if you employ your car to intentionally hurt people, you are a bad person. No amount of annoyance or personal inconvenience justifies using deadly weapons to attack a group of protesters, cyclists, or anyone you don’t like.
[This is a breaking story, and we will update as more details emerge.]
