Tensions have been built at Princeton University with the reign of pro-Palestine protesters, occupying a white, Greek Revival-style building at the center of the campus, and police moved in. Angry crowds surrounded a bus after police took two demonstrators out of the building.
“It was a tense time as hundreds of protesters tried to intervene in legal arrests,” reads a police report on April 29, 2024.
David Piegaro, who was a junior at Princeton, was shooting there on his cell phone. Mr Piegaro said he was not one of the protesters and he opposed many of their languages and tactics. He described himself as a pro-Israel “citizen journalist” who was inadequate to the university and wanted to see witnesses through recordings.
By nightfall, he was one of more than a dozen students charged with misconduct at an elite New Jersey school. Last spring, he joined about 3,100 people arrested or detained on campuses across the county, a wave of student operations in the Gaza war.
On the same day, allegations of intrusion against pro-Palestinian protesters arrested by Princeton are pending. But Mr. Pagaro, who was accused of assault, was the only person on trial so far. A city court judge for a two-day lawsuit expected to be held in February is expected to announce the verdict Tuesday.
The Trump administration has performed dramatically on college-age protesters who have punished or tried to punish, opposing Israel's military response in Gaza, with deaths exceeding 50,000.
The government has detained or threatened to deport at least nine international students or faculty members, including graduate students from Tufts University, who co-wrote an opinion article in student newspapers criticizing the university’s response to pro-Palestinian needs. She was detained last week.
But the arrest and trial of Mr. Piegaro, who was born and raised in New Jersey, underscores the complexity of the problems faced by university administrators and police officers as they strive to balance the issue of respect for free expression with the issue about what constitutes hate speech.
Mr. Piegaro, 27, is older than most undergraduates. After several years in the U.S. Army, he began studying at Princeton University, where he worked as an intelligence analyst and had the highest security permit.
He is Jewish and said he is troubled by the deadly attack on Israel by the terrorist group Hamas, which has caused about 1,200 people, and the strategies of the increasingly pro-Palestinian movement on campus.
But he was not involved in the protests or counter-protests, he said. One charge against him – a serious attack – was much worse than the intrusive citation filed against 13 other Princeton students that day.
As Mr Piegaro's case has passed through the criminal justice system, three charges he initially faced, including aggravated assault, were dropped or reduced. He and his attorney, Gerald Krovatin, said he twice refused to plead guilty, with less charges, firmly believed in his innocence and was unwilling to voluntarily receive records in any form of conviction.
He tried on a low-level assault charge, the equivalent of a misdemeanor, which could be sentenced to six months in prison and a fine of $1,000.
“I really believe I’m a victim,” Mr. Pergaro said in an interview. “I really don’t think I do anything.”
The run-in that led to his arrest involved Kenneth Strother Jr., the head of the school's campus security department.
Mr. Piegaro was upset that more than a dozen protesters were cited and they started recording two faculty consultants who were talking to Mr. Strother and then walking towards the nearby building adjacent to Clio Hall, the occupied one.
Mr. Strotter forbids Mr. Piegaro from trying to follow them, and Mr. Piegaro can hear Mr. Piegaro in his recorded video, asking Mr. Strother that he does not wear uniforms or badges, his name and location.
“Don't touch me,” Mr. Pergaro said before the video suddenly ended. He said that after a few seconds, he fell down on the front steps of the building.
What happened between the two is the crux of the dispute.
According to Mr Strotter, his account appeared in the police report, and Mr Pegaro “thrust himself to Mr Strotter, who “grabbed Mr Pegaro in the arm and told him he had been arrested”. Mr Strotter said he lost Mr Pegaro and he refused to arrest, causing Mr Pegaro to fall down the stairs.
Mr Piegaro said he was the person who was beaten.
Sarah Kwartler, a graduate student who dated Mr. Piegaro a few years ago and recognized him, testified that she stopped to watch the part unfold.
She said that based on the summary of the testimony submitted to the judge, she saw Mr. Stroot holding Mr. Pergaro “like a pair of scissors”, losing his grip and throwing him away. Ms. Utler said Mr. Pergaro then rolled to the bottom of the stairs, where he was handcuffed and arrested.
Mr. Pergaro complained of soreness and was taken to the hospital and was assessed for a broken rib and a concussion. According to a police report, Mr Strotter did not respond to a request for comment, but was not injured.
Mr. Piegaro's lawyer, Mr. Krovatin, argued that the initial decision to aggravate the assault on his client was treated differently than the lower-level trespass allegations against protesters, among several other offences.
“The fact remains that the only student charged with three counts of indictment that day was a Jewish U.S. Army veteran.
Princeton spokesman Jennifer Morrill said the university delayed the verdict of city attorneys and city judges. She made a distinction between Mr Piegaro's assault and the allegations of trespass against protesters.
Regarding the trespass allegations, she said: “The university is not a party (or intervening) in these court lawsuits, although the university has been saying it supports the outcome of minimizing the impact of the arrest on these people.”
“The university has no comments on individuals who have filed a separate charge with his interactions with the police,” she added.
Two pro-Palestinian protesters arrested in Princeton last April declined to comment. Princeton City Attorney Christopher Koutsouris did not return a phone call or email.
Mr Piegaro said he was banned from student housing and campus for about two weeks after his arrest. He lived for several days with Rabbi Eitan Webb, Jewish pastor and director of Chabad House at Princeton University.
Rabbi Webb recalled the “pressure-cooking effect” on campus last spring in an interview.
“In this environment, specifically targeting the events of the day, when you have a large group of public safety officials, the administrators – I think doing their best – it’s not surprising to make mistakes,” said Rabbi Webb, who attended Mr Piegaro’s trial.
He said he believed the testimony showed that Mr. Pergaro was “innocence”.
According to the abstract of the testimony, Breh Franky, who works in the Princeton Public Safety Department, testified that Mr. Pergaro and Mr. Strose “accused the door.”
However, Zia Mian, one of the two teacher consultants who spoke with Mr. Stros during the confrontation, testified: “This is not an attempt to attack the chief.”
Unlike many universities, Princeton quickly canceled efforts last April by pro-Palestinian protesters to build tents on campus. At least two people were prosecuted after they refused to fall down the tent. The night Mr. Pergaro was arrested, lasting about two hours after the student was arrested for about two hours and told them they would face arrest, lasting about two hours.
The school also managed to avoid the upheaval of many of the presidents who swept through several other prestigious universities, including some who were called to testify before Congress, whose schools responded to campus anti-Semitism.
Ms Morrier said Princeton’s “broad commitment to freedom of speech, including peaceful objections, protests and demonstrations remained unwavering”, while noting that the school’s rules cover the time, location and manner of such demonstrations. The campus continues to be filled with signs of intense academic debate.
On Tuesday afternoon, the school is hosting a forum on academic freedom and “when and how universities should take an institutional stand on social and political issues.” Later this week, a meeting will be held in the historical, theoretical and political aspects of “anti-Zionist thought.”
Keith A. Whittington, a longtime Princeton professor who teaches at Yale Law School this year, is one of three scholars attending Tuesday’s forum. Free speech scholar Professor Whittington, who occupied Clio Hall on Princeton's campus at the time, did not witness Mr. Palestinian protesters' arrest.
Professor Whitington said: “It just shows how annoying things are on campus and how turbulent these situations are.”
He said that at present, the facts may be difficult to parse.
“That's why you're going to be a judge,” he said.
