NYPD Were in ‘No Rush’ to Disclose Gun Firing Inside Hamilton Hall, Officials Say

New details emerged at an NYPD press briefing Friday morning about the gun firing inside Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall on Tuesday, where NYPD officers were attempting to clear students and other demonstrators barricaded inside. Police officials conceded that they were in “no rush” to disclose the fact that the incident took place to the public.

NYPD officials only confirmed details of the gun discharge, in which no one was harmed, four hours after a report on the incident from THE CITY, a full two days after it had occurred. By that point, Mayor Eric Adams and high-ranking police chiefs had made rounds of media appearances touting their “precision policing” and releasing their own, highly-produced video of the raid, which did not mention the gun firing.

Speaking to reporters at police headquarters at One Police Plaza, Emergency Service Unit Chief Carlos Valdez said the sergeant who discharged his weapon was using a flashlight mounted on his pistol to illuminate a dark room to figure out if anyone was inside after breaking a glass window to gain entry. He then switched the gun from his dominant hand to his other one, in order to open the doorknob with his dominant hand. That is when the gun fired, Valdez said.

“The bullet traveled through the office glass and into the office they were attempting to gain access to,” Valdez said. “After the firearm discharged, the sergeant immediately assessed his team and ensured that nobody was injured. The team gained access to the office and found that there was nobody inside.”

Bill Lewinski, an expert on accidental shootings at the Force Science Institute said firing a weapon while the gun is in a person’s non-dominant hand is a regular source of accidental discharges.

“You’re not focused on it, they unintentionally put the finger inside the trigger, which can then lead to an unintentional discharge,” he said. “It’s a training issue.”

Pressed about the delay in disclosing details about the incident, Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Tarik Sheppard said the department had determined the incident wasn’t worth bringing up proactively and that both NYPD Police Commissioner Edward Caban and Mayor Adams had been briefed on the incident.

“Was there anybody in the vicinity of this accidental discharge? Did anybody even hear it? There was nobody in danger, there was nobody struck,” Sheppard said. “My goal here was not to just try and make a story.”

“I knew it would come up eventually because it always does. So there was no rush for us to talk about this,” he added, saying that on average there are about eight accidental discharges a year.

Of 44 people allegedly arrested inside the barricaded building earlier this week, 13 were not affiliated with the university, The Columbia Spectator reported.

News of the “accidental discharge” sparked even more outrage over the Columbia administration’s move to involve the NYPD for a second time to clear the campus of pro-Palestinian student demonstrations.

Marcel Agueros, an associate professor of astronomy and secretary of the American Association of University Professors, said he was horrified by the firearm discharge.

“We were told that no one was hurt, that this was a well-rounded operation,” he said. “And now the truth is starting to come out that there was excessive force, that weapons were drawn, now we find out that a shot was fired. This is unacceptable, completely and utterly outrageous.”

A spokesperson for the university declined to comment on the gun firing inside Hamilton, deferring to the NYPD for comment.

Media access was extremely limited during the raid. Police barred most reporters from accessing campus, while others, including a reporter for THE CITY, were blocked into adjacent buildings for hours while the NYPD cleared Hamilton.

The press conference Friday came hours after the NYPD cleared two more pro-Palestinain encampments at the New School and NYU, with another 56 arrests, an NYPD spokesperson confirmed.

Since April 18, NYPD officers have arrested more than 580 demonstrators on college campus demonstrations calling for universities to divest from Israel.