One of the protesters busted inside Hamilton Hall in the NYPD raid of Columbia University is a Brooklyn lawyer who was arrested for assaulting a cop in San Francisco and faces charges for an earlier incident at Columbia in which a protester carrying an Israeli flag was attacked outside the school, police said Thursday.
James Carlson, 40, was arraigned Thursday with criminal mischief, arson, and possession of stolen property for the flag incident. His alleged accomplices are still being sought.
Carlson, who also goes by Cody Carlson and Cody Tarlow, according to sources, was inside Hamilton Hall when police raided it Tuesday night and arrested protesters who had hours earlier taken over the building and barricaded themselves inside, police said.
Carlson was already wanted for stealing the flag when he was grabbed inside Hamilton Hall. He was initially charged with burglary and reckless endangerment for being inside the building at Columbia, but arraigned Thursday in Manhattan Criminal Court for criminal trespass as well as the charges stemming from the flag incident.
Police said that on April 20 a 22-year-old man was taking part in a demonstration pitting pro-Israeli protesters against pro-Palestinian protesters. As the victim walked past Amsterdam Ave. and W. 116th St. carrying an Israeli flag, Carlson ripped the flag away from him and ran off, according to police.
When the victim started to give chase — while recording the flag set ablaze on his phone — a second attacker threw a rock, hitting him on the right side of his face. A third man hit him with another rock on the left side, police said.
The victim suffered a minor injury but did not need medical attention.
Carlson is an anarchist and an animal rights lawyer who clerked at the U.S. District Court after graduating Magna Cum Laude from Brooklyn Law School in 2013, according to a podcast he appeared on in 2018.
Before attending law school he worked as an undercover investigator on factory farms and slaughterhouses recording animal abuse, according to the podcast, and was the subject of a piece in the New York Times Magazine in 2015 about that work.
According to a city government source and police, Carlson was arrested at a 2005 protest in San Francisco as part of the “West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8” after being part of a group that tried to lynch a cop and attempted to set a patrol car on fire.
He was charged with malicious mischief, suspicion of attempted lynching, battery to a police officer, assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon and willful resistance to a police officer that results in bodily injury, said sources.
Carlson appeared in court wearing glasses and a keffiyeh on his head. After the arraignment, supporters blocked him from cameras by holding jackets and other clothing aloft as he walked out of the courtroom.
A total of 282 protesters were arrested at Columbia and City College of New York Tuesday night, including at least 27 by CCNY security officers.
On Wednesday and Thursday, 74 people were arraigned after being arrested on Tuesday at Columbia and City College, said a spokesman from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
In addition to the 74 individuals, 16 were given desk appearance tickets, and the remaining arrests are summons matters.
Of the arrestees from Columbia, 46 people were arraigned for criminal trespass and released, and 22 defendants arrested at City College were arraigned for burglary and obstructing governmental administration and released, said the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
“Many protesters who were arrested earlier this week and arraigned last night were ultimately charged with criminal trespass, a low-level offense, and at that point, they should have been immediately released from custody,” said Chief Attorney of the Criminal Defense Practice at The Legal Aid Society Tina Luongo. “Existing law requires this, but that unfortunately did not occur, and Legal Aid has been litigating this very issue against the City and the NYPD to force them into compliance.”
Another source told the Daily News that just one protester arrested at City College was arraigned Wednesday night. An NYPD official said that the City College arrestees were printed and photographed by NYPD but campus police had to fill out the paperwork regarding the arrests. They were not familiar with the procedure and processes required, delaying the arraignments.
