{"id":155950,"date":"2026-03-07T02:51:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T02:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/155950\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T02:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T02:51:12","slug":"columbia-student-detained-by-ice-nypd-releases-bodycam-showing-officers-encounter-with-homeland-security-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/155950\/","title":{"rendered":"Columbia student detained by ICE: NYPD releases bodycam showing officers’ encounter with Homeland Security agents"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — The NYPD has released bodycam video from the two officers who responded to the off-campus Columbia University apartment building where a student was being detained<\/a> by federal agents last week.<\/p>\n

The bodycam footage, taken shortly after 6:30 a.m. on Feb. 26, shows officers driving to the scene, and heading into the apartment building.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The building’s superintendent, a few minutes earlier, had let other officers in, who allegedly said they were looking for a missing person.<\/p>\n

At some point it became clear that those officers were from the Department of Homeland Security and were looking for a university student, 29-year-old Ellie Aghayeva, a senior originally from Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n

That’s when someone called 911 reporting suspicious activity by two males.<\/p>\n

The two NYPD officers made their way to the second floor where they saw one federal agent and assessed that he was the so-called “suspicious person.” He told the officers he was Homeland Security.<\/p>\n

The NYPD officers then made their way farther into the apartment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“I think that’s the suspicious person right there, all black,” said one of the officers in the bodycam footage.<\/p>\n

The NYPD was only on the scene for a few minutes. The student is never seen on the video, and the officers leave saying they’ve identified the suspicious people as federal agents.<\/p>\n

Columbia issued a statement reiterating that the University “does not permit law enforcement officials to enter University residences or other private property except under specific circumstances,” including legitimate emergencies and when they present a valid judicial warrant or subpoena.<\/p>\n

The school has also given additional training to frontline personnel at campus buildings and residential facilities, increased safety patrols and is upgrading infrastructure to allow for video intercom systems.<\/p>\n

The incident sparked protests on campus and concerns about how the federal agents got inside.<\/p>\n

Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal is calling for Columbia University to release their own security camera footage.<\/p>\n

As for the student, she was released later in the day.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2026 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — The NYPD has released bodycam video from the two officers who responded to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[64515,128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-155950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-64515","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}