Take a crime prevention class or go to jail: Westchester DA’s scathing rebuke of anti-Israel college protesters
Westchester County prosecutors are giving anti-Israel protesters who were busted during a campus demonstration at SUNY Purchase a choice: Enroll in a crime prevention course or face jail time.
Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah said nearly all of the 68 protesters arrested at the state university on May 2 will have the option to take a three-hour “Fresh Start” course to avoid prosecution and potentially keep them out of the county lockup, the office said Wednesday.
“After evaluating the facts and circumstances, the WCDAO is offering our pre-arraignment diversionary program to eligible individuals, as we routinely do when first-time defendants face trespass violations,” a spokesperson for Rocah said in a statement.
The “Fresh Start” program was created by Rocah in 2021 as an alternative to prosecution for first-time offenders.
Most of those arrested at the state-run school were charged with trespassing when university police broke up the demonstration on the suburban campus after student and faculty protesters did not disperse, according to a report by lohud.com.
The controversial sweep led to negotiations between pro-Palestinian protesters and school administrators, with the student group accusing police of overreacting.
“It was completely uncalled for,” student protester Kaelin Martin told lohud.com of the May 2 raid. “We actually began sitting in a circle quietly, even respecting the quiet hours that our school implements.
“It’s completely ridiculous and they couldn’t have handled it worse.”
The Purchase protest was one of dozens playing out on college campuses across the US, including at Columbia University and other schools in the Big Apple.
On May 7, cops cleared away an anti-Israel encampment at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
It came after the NYPD stormed Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus last month and arrested more than 100 protesters, including 44 who had broken into Hamilton Hall and barricaded the historic academic building.
Days later, police broke up a tent encampment at New York University and the New School, arresting more than a dozen anti-Israel demonstrators.
