The tension was built at the University of Princeton, as pre-Palestinian protesters occupied a white-colored building, Greek revival in the center of campus, and police moved.
“It was a tense moment, as there were hundreds of protesters trying to interfere with legal arrests,” a police report said on April 29, 2024.
David Piegaro, then a princeton junior, was filming with his phone. Mr Piegaro says he was not one of the protesters and opposes much of their language and tactics. He described himself as a pre-Israel “journalist citizen” who was worried about what he saw as an inadequate response from the University and wanted to testify with the recording.
By night, he was one of more than twelve students who were charged with an offense at Elite New Jersey School. It joined about 3,100 people arrested or held last spring in campus campus cities across the country in a wave of student activism for the Gaza war.
The charges of breach are pending against pre-Palestinian demonstrators arrested at Princeton that day. But Mr Piegaro, who was accused of attacking a police officer after being blocked by entering a campus building, was the first to go to trial. On Tuesday, the Judge of the Princeton Municipal Court of Justice, who chaired Mr Piegaro’s two -day trial in February, found him not guilty.
“Incidently clashes with a stretched arm may have been unfair or even provocative, but it does not equate with reckless indifference,” Judge John F. McCarthy III said as he announced the verdict.
“The defendant, in my opinion, has shown a bad judgment at a tense time, but does not rise to the level of criminal recklessness.”
Trump’s administration has made a dramatic demonstration of punishment or trying to punish protesters of college age who have spoken against Israel’s military reaction in Gaza, where the number of deaths has exceeded 50,000 people.
The administration either held or threatened to displace at least nine international students or faculty members, including a postgraduate student at the University of Tufts, who had written a piece of opinion in the student newspaper that criticizes the university’s response to the pre-port. It was held in custody last week.
However, the arrest and trial of Mr Piegaro, who was born and raised in New Jersey, emphasized the complexity of the issues faced by university administrators and the police as they try to balance the respect for free expression.
Mr. Piegaro, 27, is older than most undergraduate students. He began studying at Princeton after serving for several years in the US Army, where he worked as an information analyst with a top secret security clearance.
He is a Jew and said he was annoyed by the deadly attack on Israel by the Hamas terrorist group, which killed about 1,200 people and the tactics of the growing pre-Palestinian movement on campus.
He said, however, he did not participate in protests or controversy. And one of the accusations against him – a deteriorating attack – was much more serious than the violations reported against 13 other Princeton students who were charged that day.
As Mr Piegaro’s case moved through the criminal justice system, three of the charges they initially faced, including the aggressive attack, fell or declined. He and his lawyer, Gerald Krovatin, said he had twice refused to admit guilty of a smaller category, persuaded his innocence and did not wish to voluntarily violate his record with a belief of any kind.
He went to trial for a lower -level attack charge, equivalent to a misdemeanor, which brought a possible six -month sentence to prison and a fine of $ 1,000.
“I really think I’m the victim,” Mr Piegaro said in an interview. “I don’t think I did anything.”
The running that led to his arrest was the head of the school’s security department, Kenneth Strother Jr.
Mr Piegaro, upset that more than twelve of the protesters had been released by reports, had begun to record two of their advisers, who spoke with Mr. Strother and walking to Whig Hall, which is next to the building occupied, Clio Hall.
Mr Strother prevented Mr Piegaro from trying to follow them, and Mr Piegaro may be heard in the video he recorded by asking Mr Strother, who was not in uniform or wearing his name, his name and position.
“Don’t touch me,” says Mr. Piegaro before the video ends abruptly. Seconds later, Mr Piegaro said, found himself falling under the front steps of the building.
What happened in the meantime was the essence of the difference.
According to Mr Strother, whose account appeared at the police report, Mr Piegaro “pushed himself” to Mr Strother, who “grabbed Mr Piegaro by his hand and told him he was arrested”. Mr Strother said he lost Mr Piegaro, who resists arrest, causing Mr Piegaro to fall under the stairs.
Mr Piegaro says he was the one who attacked.
Sarah Kwartler, a graduate of a student who had gone on two dates with Mr Piegaro several years ago and acknowledged him, testified that she stopped watching part of what unfolded.
He said he saw Mr Strother hold Mr Piegaro “like an open pair of scissors”, losing his handle and threw him, according to a summary of the testimony submitted to the judge. Mr Piegaro then ran to the bottom of the stairs, Ms Kwartler said, where she was handcuffed and arrested.
Protesting about pain, Mr Piegaro was taken to a hospital and was evaluated for broken ribs and concussion. Mr Strother, who did not respond to comments, had not been injured, according to the police report.
Mr Krovatin, Mr Piegaro’s lawyer, had argued that the decision to first accuse his client by aggressive attack, in addition to many other crimes, hit by a different treatment compared to the categories of lower level violations that were leveled against protesters.
“The fact remains that the only student accused of three reported offenses that day was a Jewish veteran of the US Army,” Mr Krovatin said, adding: “I don’t get because Princeton has not pulled back to it.”
A spokesman for Princeton, Jennifer Morrill, said prior to the verdict that the university is postponing the decision of the municipal prosecutor and the municipal judge. He returned the distinction between Mr Piegaro’s attack case and the charges of violations filed against the protesters.
Regarding the infringement categories, he said: “The university is not a party – and has not intervened – these judicial procedures, although the university has steadily said that it supports a result that would minimize the impact of arrests on these people.”
He added: “The university has no comment on the separate accusations against a person in relation to his interaction with a police officer.”
Two of the pre-Palestinian protesters arrested in Princeton last April refused to comment. Princeton’s municipal prosecutor Christopher Koutsouris did not return calls or emails.
After being arrested by Mr. Piegaro, he was banned from students’ housing and prevented from entering campus for about two weeks. He spent a few days living with Rabbi Eitan Webb, a Jewish chapel and director of the Chabad House of the University of Princeton.
In an interview, Rabbi Webb recalled a “pressure-kitchen phenomenon” on campus last spring.
“In this environment, speaking specifically about the events of that day, when you have a number of public security officers, managers – I think they do their best – it is not surprising that mistakes will be made,” said Rabbi Webbb, who attended Mr Piegaro’s trial before the announcement.
The trial included competing accounts of the controversy and Mr Piegaro simply said he was “relieved” by Tuesday’s verdict.
Unlike many universities, Princeton quickly overturned efforts last April from pre-Palestinian protesters to create scenes on campus. At least two people were charged after refusing to take the scenes. The acquisition of Clio Hall at night Mr. Piegaro was arrested, lasted for about two hours after the students received a deadline for exit and said they would face arrest.
The school has also managed to avoid much of the upheaval that has flooded the presidents of many other prominent universities, including some who were called upon to testify before Congress for their schools’ responses to anti -Semitism in campus.
On Tuesday, however, Trump’s administration stopped an unacceptable department of the university’s federal funding. Other top schools, such as Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, have faced similar cuts as a result of the perceived failures identified by the administration.
“We are determined to combat anti -Semitism and all forms of discrimination,” writes Princeton President Christopher L. Eisguber, in an e -mail that alerts the academic community that “several dozen” federal grants were suspended. “And we will work with the government to combat anti -Semitism.”
“Princeton,” added, “will strongly defend academic freedom and the rights of a fair process of this university.”
Last month, after Columbia agreed to concessions in an effort to maintain $ 400 million, Mr Eisguber said he was concerned that the use of federal research grants as Cudgel could cause long -term damage.
“I think as soon as you make concessions once, it’s hard not to do them again,” he told Pbs Newshour.
The day before public funding, Ms Morrill reiterated that “Princeton’s expansionist commitment to freedom of speech – which includes peaceful disagreement, protest and demonstrations – remains steadfast”, noting the rules of the school that govern the time, the place and the way.
The campus continues to hit this week with signs of intense academic discussion.
On Wednesday afternoon, Princeton holds a forum for academic freedom and “if, when and how universities have to take institutional positions on social and political issues”. Later this week, a conference will be held on the history, theory and policy of the “anti-Siganist idea”.
Keith A. Whittington, a long -term Princeton professor who teaches Yale Law School this year, is one of the three academics participating in Wednesday’s forum. Professor Whittington, a liberty scholar, was on the campus of Princeton on the day that pre-Palestinian protesters occupied Clio Hall, but did not see Mr Piegaro’s arrest.
“It just shows how full things are in campuses and how unstable these situations are,” Professor Whittington said.
At the moment, he said, the facts can be difficult to analyze.
“That’s why you have tests,” he said.
Mr Piegaro expects to graduate in May and hopes the verdict will help to facilitate the pressure he has felt in the last 11 months. Apart from a degree to finances, there is another thing that hopes to get from Princeton.
“I honestly want an apology,” he said.
