New York, NY – A 21-year-old New York University (NYU) student was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly assaulting a female pro-Israel demonstrator and another person in the school’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library in Manhattan, according to NYU’s campus newspaper and the New York City Police Department (NYPD).
The NYPD told The Algemeiner on Wednesday that officers arrested 21-year-old Aiden Lopez and charged him with assault and criminal mischief. According to an account of the incident described by an unnamed male complainant, Lopez was arguing with the female pro-Israel demonstrator, who is also an NYU student, and “slammed a gate causing minor bruising to her thumb.” When the complainant attempted to intervene, Lopez allegedly punched “him in the face and neck” and destroyed his mobile phone.
The female student was at the Bobst Library to participate in a pro-Israel sit-in and said the male whom Lopez struck was a visitor to campus, according to Washington Square News, the official campus newspaper of NYU.
“We’re horrified to learn of an alleged assault against a student at New York University who was wearing an Israeli flag & participating in a sit-in,” the New York/New Jersey office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tweeted on Wednesday, calling for a full investigation into the alleged assault. “We thank the university for its response and law enforcement for apprehending the suspected predator.”
NYU did not respond to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
