On the day classes resumed their regular scheduling in September, one protester splattered the university’s famous Alma Mater statue in red paint.

Following the incident, New York Police Department investigators deployed an extensive array of high-tech surveillance and investigative tools to identify the alleged vandal, according to documents from the court case provided exclusively to The Intercept. Police leveraged networks of surveillance cameras and facial recognition software to pinpoint a suspect.

In July 2025, Jakhi Isaiah, a New Jersey-based activist whose legal last name is McCray, was charged for the incident.

As the nationwide protest movement against Israel’s genocide in Gaza became a national lightening rod and the Trump administration began to throw its weight against activists, authorities at all levels began to expend tremendous resources against pro-Palestine demonstrators. Using intensive surveillance tools in response to relatively minor crimes became typical in cases against pro-Palestine protesters.