A spokesperson for the NYPD confirmed that 27 people were arrested on Monday evening on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, a few blocks from one of the biggest celebrity and fashion events of the year.
Over two dozen pro-Palestine protesters were arrested on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on Monday evening while marching from a midtown college campus to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to demonstrate in front of the Met Ball, one of the most high-profile events of the year in the city.
The New York Police Department confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the arrests took place at 6:30 p.m. at 80th Street and Madison Avenue, just a block away from the star-studded red carpet event, which was teaming with paparazzi.
Waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Gaza! Gaza!”, according to the New York Times, the demonstrators, largely from student groups from Baruch College, Columbia University, and New York University who had gathered to protest the war in Gaza, had all converged at Hunter College, according to the NYPD.
A total of 27 people were arrested, according to an NYPD spokesperson who added that an investigation into the planned protest is still ongoing.
Just after 4:30 p.m. on Monday, police responded to three scheduled demonstrations at separate college campuses; these took place in Greenwich Village, home to New York University; the Gramercy Park area, where Baruch College is located; and Morningside Heights, where protests have rattled the Columbia University campus for weeks.
More to come…