Columbia University had
just resumed classes for the first time since a major crackdown on pro-Palestine demonstrations roiled campus throughout the first half of 2024.
Seeking to highlight ties between Columbia University and Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza,
the campus protest movement had
culminated in a building occupation
that
ended
with dozens of arrests, sparking
activism on campuses
across the
country
. At Columbia, classes went virtual or used a hybrid model.
On the day classes resumed their regular scheduling in September, one protester splattered the university’s famous Alma Mater statue in red paint.
Following the incident, New York Police Department investigators deployed an extensive array of high-tech surveillance and investigative tools to identify the alleged vandal, according to documents from the court case provided exclusively to The Intercept. Police leveraged networks of surveillance cameras and facial recognition software to pinpoint a suspect.
In July 2025, Jakhi Isaiah, a New Jersey-based activist whose legal last name is McCray, was charged for the incident.
As the nationwide protest movement against Israel’s genocide in Gaza became a national lightening rod and the
Trump administration
began to
throw its weight
against
activists
, authorities at all levels began to expend tremendous resources against pro-Palestine demonstrators. Using intensive surveillance tools in response to relatively minor crimes became typical in cases against 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,” said Bina Ahmad, a civil rights and criminal defense attorney has represented pro-Palestine protesters but is not working 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 cha
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