CCNY Students Pepper Sprayed During Campus Protest

CITY COLLEGE, NY, April 24, 2025

CUNY public safety officers used pepper spray against student protestors  during a pro Palestinian demonstration on the campus of The City College of New York (CCNY). “They started getting really physical, pulling and pushing on kids. One kid got pepper sprayed and lost their shoe,” said Jack Davitt, a 20-year-old junior.  The protest formed in response to an Instagram post by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). In the post they declared the CCNY Quad as the Hilmi Al Faqaawi Liberated Zone.  The Instagram said they chose the name to honor a Palestinian journalist killed by an Israeli airstrike on April 7th, 2025.

Protestors hold banners on the Quad on April 24th, 2025. Photo by Jack Devitt.

The demonstration began peacefully around the Quad flagpole, which is not an approved site for protests, according to the CCNY Student Demonstration Policy. In response, CCNY public safety officers handed out yellow note cards that outlined the college policy. But the students did not disperse. An officer using a megaphone warned students that the college considered it an unauthorized protest and those that ignored the dispersal order would be subject to arrest. 

The police herded students down Convent Avenue and toward the North Academic Center. In the meantime, students not involved in the protest were locked out of the NAC, Shepard Hall and Marshak, and others could not enter on Convent Avenue or elsewhere. Shazia Chowdhury, a senior, saw the security tighten. “They were letting people get out of campus, but not into campus,” she said. 

Public safety officers funneled the protestors toward the entrance fence at the edge of the NAC.  A video post on X shows a wild scene of pushing and yelling by officers and protestors trying to enter the campus. 

A member of the Department of Public Safety, who agreed to speak off record on the condition of anonymity, said that the officers only began using pepper spray after protestors threw “fluids” at officers. Devitt said that protestors only began throwing water after the pepper spraying had begun. Abel Lockhart, a journalism student, said students not involved in the protest were trying to help those who’d been sprayed.  “There were people around them pouring water on their face, and they were crying, tears rolling down their face, too,” he said, “Everyone kind of came together to help out in that moment.” 

The Department of Public Safety refused to give Harlem View an official comment.

An officer on Convent Avenue at the City College of New York points a canister of pepper spray at a group of students on April 24th, 2025. Photo by Jack Devitt. 

But Abel Lockhart did approach one of the officers. “This one guy told me that he didn’t understand why students would protest against the school. To him, it wasn’t the school’s fault about what is happening in Palestine. Which I would disagree with, but I’m questioning how many boomers have this kind of mindset,” Lockhart said.

Jack Devitt sees the confrontation with security and the police as part of a bigger picture.  “This did not happen out of thin air. This is targeted and 100 per cent  part of a political agenda that is trying to silence students on campus.”

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