Columbia University had simply resumed courses for the primary time since a serious crackdown on pro-Palestine demonstrations roiled campus all through the primary half of 2024.
Seeking to spotlight ties between Columbia University and Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, the campus protest motion had culminated in a building occupation that ended with dozens of arrests, sparking activism on campuses throughout the country. At Columbia, courses went digital or used a hybrid mannequin.
On the day courses resumed their common scheduling in September, one protester splattered the college’s well-known Alma Mater statue in purple paint.
Following the incident, New York Police Department investigators deployed an in depth array of high-tech surveillance and investigative instruments to establish the alleged vandal, in accordance to paperwork from the courtroom case supplied completely to The Intercept. Police leveraged networks of surveillance cameras and facial recognition software program to pinpoint a suspect.
In July 2025, Jakhi Isaiah, a New Jersey-based activist whose authorized final identify is McCray, was charged for the incident.
As the nationwide protest motion towards Israel’s genocide in Gaza grew to become a nationwide lightening rod and the Trump administration started to throw its weight towards activists, authorities in any respect ranges started to expend great assets towards pro-Palestine demonstrators. Using intensive surveillance instruments in response to comparatively minor crimes grew to become typical in circumstances towards pro-Palestine protesters.
“It deliberately sends a very chilling message that you better not dissent.”
“I think it deliberately sends a very chilling message that you better not dissent,” stated Bina Ahmad, a civil rights and felony protection legal professional has represented pro-Palestine protesters however just isn’t engaged on Isaiah’s case. “How many [resources] they used for such a small charge kind of says they will go to any length to grab who they want to grab and charge what they want to charge.”
The paperwork obtained by The Intercept additionally element how NYPD investigators appeared to have deserted the case, earlier than being spurred to reopen it by federal officers. Both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and the U.S. Marshals Service, in accordance to the paperwork, have been collaborating in a separate federal investigation into Isaiah.
Facial Recognition
Columbia claimed that the paint protest had brought on hundreds of {dollars} in harm to the statue, however upkeep crews have been ready to clear it up nearly instantly. Photographs taken by college students present that, by the top of the day, all of the paint had had been removed.
The hunt for the alleged vandal quickly acquired underway.
In the times following the incident, NYPD detectives used 21 completely different digital camera angles and tracked the individual that they allege is Isaiah as he moved each in and out of Columbia’s campus.
“If you go around New York, there’s fucking cameras literally everywhere,” Isaiah instructed The Intercept. “That’s freaky as hell.”
Investigators declare to have adopted Isaiah’s actions utilizing surveillance footage for greater than two steady hours surrounding the incident, monitoring him even after he entered a college constructing and altered clothes. The individual on video footage in the course of the vandalism was masked and wore a hat. (Neither the NYPD nor Columbia responded to requests for remark.)
A digital camera finally captured somebody wearing related clothes with their masks eliminated whereas operating down a close-by metropolis road, in accordance to the invention paperwork. NYPD detectives then took the maskless picture and used facial recognition instruments to generate a success on Isaiah.
Following the facial recognition ID, a possible trigger to arrest discover was issued, which means that officers Isaiah encountered would have discretion on whether or not or not to carry him into custody and cost him with the vandalism offenses.
Months later, Isaiah was arrested at an unrelated anti-ICE protest. Despite being in custody, he was not charged or arraigned on any offenses relating to the Columbia University incident, suggesting that the NYPD investigation towards him had stalled.
Later, inner communications obtained by The Intercept revealed that whereas Columbia’s public security division finally requested the NYPD to terminate the investigation, they reversed course lower than a day later, citing a “miscommunication” between college officers and the NYPD.
Newfound Attention
In June 2025, some 10 months after the paint incident, Isaiah acquired newfound consideration from legislation enforcement. He was accused of being the perpetrator behind a multi-car arson carried out against NYPD vehicles at a Brooklyn precinct.
The NYPD investigation appeared to have languished, Isaiah stated. Despite the police’s possible trigger to arrest discover tied to his identification, Isiah stated he had a number of run-ins with NYPD, together with the ICE protest arrest, the place officers stopped Isaiah, however opted not to cost him with any offenses associated to the Columbia investigation.
After the federal investigation into Isaiah for arson, nonetheless, the NYPD detectives appeared to revive the case towards him associated to the Columbia vandalism.
Internal communications obtained by The Intercept from one week after the arson investigation started present NYPD detectives saying that “due to recent incident that occurred in the confines of the 83 Precinct involving wanted perpetrator, case has become federal and the federal authorities will continue to follow up.” Two needed posters — one for the arson, and one for the vandalism — have been hooked up to the e-mail.
Following a weekslong manhunt by federal legislation enforcement associated to the fires, Isaiah surrendered to police. (He has since pleaded responsible to one depend of arson in federal courtroom.) Following his detention by federal authorities, prosecutors in New York charged him within the Columbia paint incident.
Federal cooperation with local law enforcement agencies has ramped up within the wake of the nationwide protest motion towards U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, spurred partly by initiatives like Donald Trump’s National Security Memorandum-7 and his executive order that designated “antifa” as a home terror group. Highly politicized federal companies are actually extra repeatedly working hand in glove with native police departments, who now have a mandate to pursue politicized circumstances, stated Brendan McQuade, a criminologist on the University of Southern Maine.
“This is collaboration institutionalized,” stated McQuade.
When Isaiah was lastly arraigned for the Columbia paint costs, an NYPD report featured a listing of 41 completely different “associates” — folks police suspected to be contacts or who he’d been arrested alongside at protests. Isaiah believes the checklist is a part of a wider sample of repression and investigation of pro-Palestine protesters. He wonders whether or not if he had not turned himself in, the checklist could have been used towards folks in his neighborhood.
“If they hadn’t found me, they probably would have kept going through that list.”
“It’s just very obvious network mapping,” he stated. “If they hadn’t found me, they probably would have kept going through that list.”
Isaiah is anticipated to stand trial for 3 vandalism and graffiti-related costs in August however says that he sees his case as emblematic of bigger tendencies in American society.
“The repression on the movement, the surveillance on the movement is often just a microcosm of the larger repression of communities as a whole,” he stated.
He nonetheless stays hopeful: “Communities are still finding a way to prosper and live their lives, despite this intense level of omnipresence.”
