Outsiders Were Among Columbia Protesters, but They Dispute Instigating Clashes

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“They struck me as members of the community, folks from the city, folks from our neighborhood,” said Matthew Cavalletto, who was among those arrested during protests at Columbia University this week.
“And not some kind of foreign element that had snuck in to sap our city’s vitality.”Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times City officials have blamed “external actors” for escalating demonstrations at Columbia University and elsewhere, but student protesters reject the claim.
“And not some kind of foreign element that had snuck in to sap our city’s vitality.”Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times * May 4, 2024Updated 11:56 a.m. ET One of the people arrested at Columbia University this week was a middle-aged saxophonist who headed up to the campus from his Hell’s Kitchen apartment after learning about the protests on social media.
A New York Times review of police records and interviews with dozens of people involved in the protest at Columbia found that a small handful of the nearly three dozen arrestees who lacked ties to the university had also participated in other protests around the country.