NYPD Admits 'No Rush' To Reveal Cop Shot Gun At Columbia Protest Raid

NEW YORK CITY — A cop "accidentally" shooting a gun. Potentially missing "outside agitators." Fuzzy arrest math. Accusations of police brutality.

The NYPD crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University and City College of New York were far from the smooth operations touted by Mayor Eric Adams and police brass, according to a steady drip of revelations following the Tuesday night raids.

The latest disclosure came late Thursday when THECITY reported an NYPD cop tasked with clearing the protester-occupied Hamilton Hall inadvertently shot his gun — a potentially deadly incident that police officials admittedly failed to disclose during triumphant media appearances, including a video with soaring music, following the raids.

Tarik Sheppard, the NYPD's top spokesperson, said the gunshot didn't up come "organically" in a news conference after the crackdowns.

"It was no rush for us to talk about this," he said Friday morning, nearly three days after the inadvertent shooting.

"My goal here was not to just try to make a story, my goal was is here there a story in terms of, hey, is there something abnormal about this?" he said Friday. "And there wasn't."

The NYPD averages eight so-called "accidental discharges" a year, Sheppard said — a statistic that arguably belied his point that nothing out-of-the-normal happened.

Manhattan prosecutors are reviewing the incident, officials said.

Watch live as Emergency Service Unit Chief Carlos Valdez updates the media regarding an accidental firearm discharge. https://t.co/hfnAVumBgY
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) May 3, 2024

The incident unfolded as an emergency service unit sergeant used a flashlight attached to his gun to find the best way around a barricade on the building's first floor, said Carlos Valdez, the chief who leads the unit.

Valdez said when the sergeant switched the gun from his dominant hand to his non-dominant hand that he accidentally pulled the trigger.

A bullet fired into an empty office, he said.

"At no time were any police officers, members of the public or any protesters in danger," he said. "This was purely unintentional."

The explanation left many details unclear, including how exactly the sergeant pulled the trigger or if the gun had the NYPD's historic 12-pound trigger pull or the newer standard of 5 pounds.

Such questions could be cleared up if the NYPD released the officer's body camera video, but Sheppard adamantly argued the department will not do so.

The department never does so for other accidentally discharges, he said.

"We don't have any intention of releasing the police body cam on accidental discharge," he said.

"Just because it happens at a place where we're during an operation, where now it's at a place where we consider newsworthy, now we care? But accidental discharges happen every single year."

NYPD officials also came under fire for its delayed release of arrest numbers of student and non-student protesters at the Columbia and City College raids. Such data could help verify Adams' and police brass' claims that "outside agitators" swayed the protests.

The figures released late Thursday contended 29 percent of people arrested at Columbia were "unaffiliated" with the school. But it doesn't make clear where those people were arrested or any other details about their backgrounds.