{"id":156368,"date":"2026-03-07T19:45:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T19:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/156368\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T19:45:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T19:45:49","slug":"nypd-releases-bodycam-footage-of-response-to-columbia-students-ice-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/156368\/","title":{"rendered":"NYPD releases bodycam footage of response to Columbia student’s ICE arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NYPD on Friday released 911 audio and body camera footage<\/a> from its response to federal immigration officers’ arrest of Columbia University student Ellie Aghayeva at her off-campus apartment last week.<\/p>\n

The 911 call reported two “suspicious males” trying to “gain entry” into the student-housing building near Columbia\u2019s campus. When responding officers arrived, they found four officers with Homeland Security Investigations \u2014 a subdivision of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement \u2014 already inside a second-floor apartment. Two of the agents wore badges around their necks.<\/p>\n

Someone wearing a Columbia campus security hat was also at the scene.<\/p>\n

“We called the super on the intercom,” one of the HSI officers said, adding that his three partners were inside the apartment.<\/p>\n

“You guys roll deep,” NYPD Officer Frank Tortorella responded.<\/p>\n

The responding officers verified the identities of two of the four HSI officers at the scene by requesting their identification, according to the footage.<\/p>\n

Columbia President Claire Shipman previously said<\/a> federal agents “misrepresented themselves” by claiming to be police searching for a missing child to gain access to the building and apartment. The footage does not capture what the ICE agents said to gain entry.<\/p>\n

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said last week that the officers “verbally identified themselves” and “visibly wore badges around their necks” but has not addressed the missing child claim.<\/p>\n

The release of the NYPD body camera footage comes after several lawmakers called on<\/a> the NYPD and Columbia to release video footage surrounding the incident.<\/p>\n

“Based on the video, it’s more imperative than ever that Columbia release their security camera footage so we can fully understand how ICE gained access to this off-campus housing and to the extent civil rights violations occurred,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal said in a social media<\/a> post on Friday.<\/p>\n

A university spokesperson declined to comment on the video\u2019s release and said it would not be releasing surveillance footage from the incident without a subpoena, per university policy.<\/p>\n

Aghayeva, who is from Azerbaijan and studies neuroscience and political science at Columbia, was released several hours after her arrest following a plea from Mayor Zohran Mamdani during a visit to the White House.<\/p>\n

Civil liberties advocates have said the officers’ alleged use of a ruse to enter the building may have violated Fourth Amendment protections<\/a> against unreasonable searches.<\/p>\n

Arya Sundaram contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NYPD on Friday released 911 audio and body camera footage from its response to federal immigration officers’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-156368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-the-bronx","13":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","14":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156368","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=156368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}