Vandals defaced the apartment building of Columbia University’s chief operating officer with red paint Thursday morning, and left fliers on his Brooklyn block blaming him for the arrest of pro-Palestinian protesters at the university in June.
They also painted inverted red triangles on the Brooklyn Heights building, a symbol Hamas uses to label targets, and that has been co-opted by activists. Vandals also released crickets into the building, according to the Daily News .
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The fliers, which included his address and apartment number, said COO Cas Holloway “brutalized” and “imprisoned” students, referencing the university’s decision to call in the New York City Police Department to break down protesters’ encampment and remove those who occupied one of its most storied buildings on campus. In black and red type the flier demanded that Columbia “Divest from Israel, divest from genocide,” and not expel students involved in this past year’s protests.
“Did you enjoy our present? Did it make you feel uncomfortable?” the leaflet reads. “Whatever you felt was incomparable to the pain you made Columbia students feel when you signed off on their brutalization because they stood against the genocide of Palestinians.”
A New York Police Department spokesperson said there are not leads yet in its investigation of the incident. A spokesperson for the university said: “Columbia unequivocally condemns vandalism, threats, and personal attacks. Anyone engaging in such activity will be reported to law enforcement and face appropriate discipline. Every member of our community deserves to feel safe, valued, and able to thrive.”
Columbia was the epicenter of a national pro-Palestinian campus movement protesting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
The vandalism follows June incidents in which vandals defaced the home of the Jewish president of the Brooklyn Museum with red paint and inverted red triangles, and hung a banner vilifying her as a “White-Supremacist Zionist” on its facade. The homes of three other museum staffers and board members, who are not Jewish, were also defaced to express opposition to the museum’s response to a protest there in May. Two arrests were recently made in relation to those incidents.
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Holloway began as Columbia’s COO in January. He served as a deputy mayor under former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
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