Campus riots reignite after pro-Hamas mob seizes control of building at elite school
More protests broke out on Thursday at New York City’s Barnard College after a group of more than 50 anti-Israel agitators took over a building on campus the day before.
The NYPD made several arrests after the protests reignited, with around 100 anti-Israel demonstrators gathering in front of the entrance to Barnard, once again wearing masks and keffiyehs and chanting, “Free Palestine.”
Tension rose and became more chaotic as protesters marched from Barnard to CUNY’s City College campus, to protest outside Gov. Kathy Hochul’s event at CUNY, which was canceled due to the anticipated protest.
The protesters were heard chanting criticisms of Hochul and “NYPD KKK,” and tried to breach police barricades and get close to officers’ faces.
ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS ALLEGEDLY ASSAULT EMPLOYEE DURING BUILDING TAKEOVER AT BARNARD COLLEGE IN NEW YORK CITY
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., spoke out against the protests.
“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH,” Johnson wrote in a post on X.
“Pro-Hamas mobs have NO place on our college campuses. Barnard College & Columbia University must put an end to the antisemitic chaos on campus.”
Robin Levine, Barnard’s vice president for strategic communications, confirmed that a faculty member was injured during Wednesday’s protest and sent to the hospital, but did not offer further details.
“They encouraged others to enter campus without identification, showing blatant disregard for the safety of our community,” Levine said in a previous statement.
The school warned that if the students were not gone by 9:30 p.m., officials would be forced to take “additional, necessary measures to protect our campus.”
AG BONDI SAYS VIOLENT ANTI-ISRAEL STUDENT PROTESTERS IN US ON VISAS ‘NEED TO BE KICKED OUT’
The protesters began leaving the building by 11 p.m., according to reports by FOX 5 New York.
The students were protesting the expulsion of two students who stormed a Columbia University classroom in January and allegedly threw around flyers filled with hateful speech.
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine displayed videos on X of masked students in a hallway on Wednesday, beating on drums and chanting on megaphones.
STUDENTS AT ELITE NYC COLLEGE EXPELLED FOR DISRUPTING CLASS WITH THREATENING HAMAS PROPAGANDA
The account also posted a list of demands accompanied by “WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL OUR DEMANDS ARE MET. FREE PALESTINE.”
The demands include an “immediate reversal of the two Barnard students’ expulsions” and “amnesty for all students disciplined for pro-Palestine action or thought. Drop all the charges now!”
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They also requested a public meeting with Dean Leslie Grinage and President Laura Rosenbury, and the abolition of the “corrupt Barnard disciplinary process,” demanding complete transparency for current, past and future disciplinary proceedings.
The students vowed that they will continue to disrupt the campus until these demands are met.
Europe’s top diplomat warns President Trump on Putin’s real intentions
European leaders are weary of President Donald Trump’s push to secure a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, with the European Union’s top diplomat saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin “doesn’t really want peace.”
Trump on Thursday said his administration had been in “very good talks with Russia,” though he did not expand on whether any tangible progress in ending Russia’s war in Ukraine had begun.
Some NATO allies, as well as the U.S.’s decades-old partners, are increasingly frustrated with President Trump’s controversial comments about Ukraine in what has been perceived as a cost of Washington bettering ties with Moscow.
“[The] U.S. is talking to Russia, and you have to establish contacts,” EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas told Fox News Digital in a sit-down interview. “But right now, Russia doesn’t really want peace.
UKRAINE ENTERS FOURTH YEAR OF WAR WITH RUSSIA: ‘CLOSER TO THE BEGINNING THAN WE ARE TO THE END’
“[Russia] … wants us to think that they can wait us out and that time is on their side, but it’s not really so,” she continued. “If we increase the pressure, economic pressure on them, but also political pressure, if we support Ukraine so that they would be stronger on the battlefield, then they would also be stronger behind the negotiation table.”
The warning comes as Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are set to secure a minerals deal on Friday in what some hope could eventually help ceasefire discussions.
Trump has championed his ability to re-enter talks with Russia and his successful demands that NATO nations share more of the economic burden in securing Ukraine.
NATO allies did drastically ramp up their defense spending after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but the stark reversal of U.S. policy in Ukraine between the Trump and Biden administrations has sent some European nations reeling.
While some allies, like the U.K., are looking to prove to Trump that Washington and London have more shared values than not, other leaders, like the incoming chancellor of Germany, are looking to distance themselves from the U.S., a position Berlin has not taken since the fall of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II.
Kallas, in speaking with Fox News Digital, also looked to remind the Trump administration of the important value of the NATO alliance and emphasized the only time Article 5 has been called in the 76 years since the alliance was formed was after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.
EU WARNS TRUMP AGAINST LETTING PUTIN DIVIDE THE US AND EUROPE: ‘LET’S NOT DO HIM THE FAVOR’
“In terms of … international security, we need to work together with the Americans, who have been our allies for a very, very long time,” she said. “And we have been there for America.”
Kallas, who served as the first female prime minister of Estonia, pointed to the sacrifices that NATO troops made in aiding the U.S. fight in the War on Terror.
“We, as Estonia, lost as many soldiers per capita as the United States,” she said. “We were there for you when you asked for help.
“That’s why it’s painful to hear messages that, you know, we don’t care about our European allies. It should work both ways,” Kallas added.
The EU chief diplomat has repeatedly urged the U.S. and European nations not to let Putin succeed in dividing the West over Ukraine.
Ultimately, she argued that the U.S. needs to remain a steadfast partner with Europe in deterring Russian aggression because it is not only Putin that poses an active threat to the collective alliance.
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Kallas visited Washington this week to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and lawmakers about vital issues that affect the EU-U.S. security partnership, though her meeting with Rubio was canceled.
The State Department did not confirm why the meeting was canceled without being rescheduled during her stay in Washington, though Kallas said that after positive discussions with Rubio at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, she if confident communication will remain ongoing.
“There’s a lot to discuss, from Ukraine to the Middle East, also what is happening in Africa, Iran – where we have definitely mutual interest to cooperate – and not to mention China as well,” Kallas said. “There are a lot of topics that we can do [work] together with our transatlantic partners.”
Biden’s former WH press secretary says he was forced to drop out by Dem ‘firing squad’
Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spoke about how “shocking” it was to see Democratic Party leaders criticize then-President Joe Biden to the point where he stepped down from the race.
A month into President Donald Trump’s second term in office, the Democratic Party is still reeling from the 2024 race. One of the race’s most contentious aspects was how leaders and influential figures in the party demanded Biden relinquish the party’s nomination after his disastrous debate performance last June.
At an event at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University, Jean-Pierre was asked to share an anecdote about the challenges she faced in the three weeks after that debate up until Biden dropped out, and whether he should have run at all.
“He was the President of the United States at the time, he was the leader of the Democratic Party. It was truly his decision to make on what he wanted to do, and I supported that 100%. Whatever it was, I was going to support that 100%,” she answered. “Because he had the right to, as the leader of the Democratic Party coming out of a pretty successful midterm. There was supposed to be a red wave, there wasn’t a red wave.”
JEAN-PIERRE BRISTLES WHEN PRESSED ON PAST ‘DEMOCRACY’ WARNINGS: ‘DO NOT APPRECIATE HAVING MY WORDS TWISTED’
The great challenge of that three-week period, she said, came from other parts of the Democratic Party itself.
“I… look, personally, I think what was the toughest thing to see in the three weeks was there was a disconnect for me [in] what was happening with leadership in the Democratic Party and how it was truly, as my former colleague, communications director Ben Labolt said, it was a firing squad.”
“I had never seen anything like it before. I had never seen a party do that in the way that they did, and it was hurtful and sad to see that happening,” Jean-Pierre said. “A firing squad around a person who I believe was a true patriot, a person who I believe did everything that he can for this country. A person who I believe, as I mentioned before, has done more in one term than most presidents had done in two terms, historical things, and I was shocked by what I was seeing.”
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When asked by another member of the panel, Jean-Pierre confirmed she was referring to Democratic leaders who emerged to publicly criticize Biden, noting how “shocking” the turn of events was at the time.
“Instead of coming together to really be unified and trying to figure out how do we save our democracy how do we fight back, that’s what I was seeing,” she said. “That’s what we decided to do for three weeks, and, you know, it was truly, truly unfortunate, and I think it hurt us more than I think folks realized, to have done that.”
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ICE makes major move on detaining illegal immigrants in heart of blue state
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is making moves to detain illegal immigrants as the Trump administration looks to expand its arrest and deportation operations throughout the United States.
ICE announced the “imminent reopening” of the Delaney Hall facility in Newark, N.J. The agency said it has reached an agreement with the facility’s owner to re-establish a processing and detention center, which can accommodate up to 1,000 beds.
“This detention center is the first to open under the new administration,” acting ICE Director Caleb Vitello said in a statement.
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“The location near an international airport streamlines logistics and helps facilitate the timely processing of individuals in our custody as we pursue President Trump’s mandate to arrest, detain and remove illegal aliens from our communities,” he said.
The agency said the facility will expand the capacity in the Northeast and increase the agency’s ability to manage a “growing” enforcement and removal operation in the region.
FLORIDA SHERIFF SAYS ICE PARTNERSHIP ONLY THE BEGINNING IN ILLEGAL MIGRANT CRACKDOWN
It comes after interior ICE arrests have skyrocketed compared to Biden-era numbers as the agency seeks to launch a “historic” deportation campaign promised by the Trump campaign.
Fox reported this month that Department of Homeland Security data showed 11,791 interior ICE arrests from Jan 20 to Feb 8, compared to 4,969 during the same period in 2024. That is a 137% increase.
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DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has since said that over 20,000 illegal immigrants were arrested in a single month under the new administration.
The administration has sought to unleash ICE agents by removing restrictions placed on them by the Biden administration, and ending Temporary Protected Status for some nationalities.
It has also taken off limits on the use of expedited removal and allowed for ICE to review the parole status of migrants brought in via humanitarian parole, opening them up for deportation.
The administration has been making agreements with other nations to take back their illegal immigrants or ramp up their own border security efforts.
Fox News Digital reported earlier this month that ICE has just under 42,000 beds available to it and that it has been exceeding capacity under the current administration.
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The Trump administration has been pushing hard to obtain more beds and detention space, but sources told Fox News Digital that it typically takes around 30 days for contractors to deliver, due to the time necessary to identify buildings, hire people and conduct background checks and related requirements.
Oscar-winning actress’ blunt response after being cut out of late father’s will
Tatum O’Neal shared her scathing reaction to being cut out of her late father Ryan O’Neal’s will.
For most of her life, the 61-year-old actress had a famously turbulent relationship with the actor, who died at the age of 82 from congestive heart failure in 2023. During a recent interview with Variety, O’Neal revealed that she only learned that Ryan had disinherited her after his death and gave a candid response to the snub.
“Keep it, motherf—–,” O’Neal said.
Ryan shared Tatum and her brother Griffin O’Neal, 60, with his late ex-wife Joanna Moore. He was also father to son Patrick O’Neal, 57, whom he shared with ex-wife Leigh Taylor-Young, as well as son Redmond O’Neal, 40, whom he shared with the late actress Farrah Fawcett.
TATUM O’NEAL: DRUG ARREST ‘SAVED’ ME
O’Neal and Griffin lived with their mother until 1970, when Moore lost custody of her children after being arrested for a DUI. Moore struggled with chronic alcohol and drug abuse problems and was arrested for driving under the influence multiple times. She died at the age of 63 from lung cancer in 1997.
After Moore lost custody of O’Neal and Griffin, they began living with Ryan. At the age of 10, O’Neal became the youngest Oscar winner in history when she starred opposite her father in 1973’s “Paper Moon.”
However, O’Neal revealed in the first of her two autobiographies, 2004’s “A Paper Life,” that their relationship became rocky after the movie’s release, since her father was jealous of her success.
“Things got ugly quick,” O’Neal told Variety.
In her memoir, O’Neal detailed Ryan’s violent temper, alleging that she suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her father, who was also addicted to drugs. O’Neal also revealed that she was later molested by a drug dealer, who was a member of Ryan’s inner circle.
During her interview with Variety, O’Neal said she believed that Ryan excluded her from his will due to “A Paper Life.”
“The first book that I wrote was just a f—ing honest book,” she said. “And that’s what got him.”
In a 2004 statement to Dateline, Ryan denied the allegations that O’Neal made against him in “A Paper Life,” and cited her own longtime struggles with drug and alcohol addiction.
“It is a sad day when malicious lies are told in order to become a ‘best seller,'” he said. “As a father, it is my hope that this book was written to serve as her therapy, and if this is what she needed to do to wake each day and live with herself, then I can only support her healing process, good, bad and ugly.”
He continued, “It is now my hope, that she remain sober, so that her perception of the future is nothing like her clouded memories of the past.”
In “A Paper Life,” O’Neal recalled how her relationship with her father deteriorated after “Paper Moon.” While Ryan’s performance as conman Moses Pray earned praise from critics, O’Neal’s portrayal of the orphaned Annie Loggins drew the most attention, with the young actress being declared a prodigy.
O’Neal alleged that Ryan hit her after she received her Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. The “Love Story” star did not accompany his daughter to the awards ceremony and later admitted that her win led to tension within the family.
“Everybody hated everybody because of that Academy Award,” Ryan said in a 2009 interview with Vanity Fair.
After she won her Academy Award, O’Neal told Variety that she was asked to audition for the role of child prostitute Iris in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 movie “Taxi Driver.” While speaking with the outlet, O’Neal remembered Ryan telling her, “‘No, you can’t,’” as he believed that the part was “a little too naked.”
However, O’Neal shared her opinion that Ryan’s envy might have led him to prevent her from auditioning for the role, which earned Jodie Foster her first Oscar nomination.
“And I never really recovered from that,” O’Neal said.
Though O’Neal went on to star in the critically and commercially successful movies “The Bad News Bears,” “International Velvet” and “Little Darlings,” her career started to stagnate toward the end of her teenage years.
O’Neal explained that her confidence in her acting ability began to wither under Ryan’s blistering criticism.
“He was controlling, and telling me, ‘No, you’re not good,’” she told Variety. “And so then I started to not good, feeling scared all the time.”
RYAN O’NEAL REUNITES WITH DAUGHTER TATUM O’NEAL, GRANDKIDS FOLLOWING ‘MANY YEARS OF HARDSHIP’
At the time, O’Neal began to publicly struggle with addiction. She previously shared that she was given alcohol for the first time at her mother’s house when she was six-years-old and alleged that Ryan introduced her and her brother to drugs.
The actress’s fame and hard-partying lifestyle led her to become a tabloid fixture and acting opportunities increasingly waned. In 1984, she began a highly-publicized and troubled romance with tennis star John McEnroe, who also had addiction problems. The pair, who share sons Kevin, 38 and Sean, 37, and daughter Emily, 33, tied the knot in 1986. However, their marriage ended in a bitter divorce in 1994.
After her divorce, O’Neal attempted to mount an acting comeback, but her career stalled when she became seriously addicted to heroin. As she continued to battle addiction, O’Neal acted occasionally, mostly taking on minor parts in movies and making guest appearances in TV shows.
O’Neal and Ryan were estranged for almost 20 years until they reconciled in 2009 following Fawcett’s death. In 2011, the two starred in the OWN reality series “Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals,” which followed their failed attempts to repair their relationship.
In May 2020, O’Neal almost died from a stroke she suffered after overdosing on pain medication, opiates and morphine. After her stroke, O’Neal remained hospitalized in a coma for six weeks, and she was left with lingering aphasia, which impacted her ability to speak, read and write.
During her interview with Variety, O’Neal admitted that she did not know if she wanted to survive the stroke, even for her children.
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“I love them so much, but I’d already given so much,” she says. “Part of me just didn’t want to make it, you know?”
However, O’Neal told Variety that she wants to leave her self-destructive habits in the past after her near-death experience.
“Now I don’t want to hurt myself,” O’Neal said. “Now I don’t want to f—ing take drugs again — I really don’t.”
Though she has made strides in her recovery from the stroke, O’Neal suffers from memory issues and chronic pain. She told Variety that she recently underwent back surgery and is learning how to read again.
Yet, O’Neal is continuing to struggle with sobriety, telling Variety that she relapsed on the night of the U.S. presidential election when she realized that President Donald Trump would emerge victorious.
“I was with my gay friends, and was like, ‘I’m going to have a glass of wine — maybe two,’” she recalled. “And then I was like, ‘OK, damn: I have one day of sobriety.’”
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O’Neal revealed that she saw Ryan three times before he passed away. Shortly before Ryan’s death, she visited her father at his Malibu home, which was destroyed in January during the Palisades Fire.
The actress told Variety that she declined when Ryan offered her drugs during that visit, recalling, “I know he was drinking, smoking a lot of pot, and he was like, ‘Here, take a pill,’” she says. “I was like, ‘No, thank you.’”
However, O’Neal’s son Kevin, who assisted his mother during the Variety interview, told the outlet, “She drank that day though. Every single time she’s seen her dad my entire life, something happens.”
Though O’Neal has struggled financially and inheriting part of Ryan’s estate would have helped with her medical and rehabilitation bills, the actress said that she has found a new sense of freedom since her father’s death.
Kevin shared his view that O’Neal is now “letting go of how much space he took up in her life,” noting “she was defined as the person who was abused by Ryan.”
“There wasn’t much of a desire to be like, ‘I can do great things,'” Kevin told his mother. “And I think today you can do great things.”
Kevin also revealed that he is developing a documentary project about his mother, which he hopes will generate income to cover some of her medical expenses.
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“As she changes, I think opportunities have begun to change for her,” McEnroe says. “More things are coming our way as she starts to see the good in people and the good in the world. Something really shifted when he died that allowed her to be —”
“Yes, just Tatum! Without my dad,” she interjected.
“Just Tatum is enough,” Kevin told her.
When asked if she felt that she was “almost there,” O’Neal responded, “Yes!”
“Even better than almost enough,” she added.
Trump to make English the official language of US with executive order
President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order that will make English the official language of the U.S., Fox News Digital confirmed Friday morning.
Trump will sign the executive order later on Friday, which rescinds a mandate issued by former President Bill Clinton in 2000 that required federal agencies and recipients of federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers, a White House official shared with Fox News Digital.
The U.S. has never had an official language across its nearly 250-year history, though every major document, including the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, has been written in English. About 180 of the 195 countries across the globe have official languages, leaving the U.S. as one of the few countries that has not officiated a language, a White House official shared.
It will be left to individual federal agencies to assess whether to offer services in languages other than English, Fox Digital learned.
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Trump previously previewed potentially officiating English as the nation’s language, including in 2024 as he railed against the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
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“We have languages coming into our country. We don’t have one instructor in our entire nation that can speak that language,” Trump said while speaking before the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2024. “These are languages—it’s the craziest thing—they have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It’s a very horrible thing.”
The order is intended to celebrate multilingual Americans who have learned English and passed it down to their family members, while also “empowering immigrants” to reach the American dream via a common language, Fox Digital learned.
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Trump has signed at least 76 executive orders since reclaiming the Oval Office in January.
His executive orders and actions have included renaming areas of the country to better celebrate the nation and its history, including renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and signing an executive order to drop the Obama-era name Mount Denali, the tallest peak in the U.S. located in the Alaska range, back to its original Mount McKinley.
Passenger on major airline witnesses ‘gate lice’ crackdown ahead of boarding
American Airlines appears to be keeping its promise of not letting pesky “gate lice” passengers board a plane before it’s their turn.
A flight passenger and Reddit user took to the social media platform to share a recent airport story about an American Airlines gate agent who held up the airline’s strong crackdown against “gate lice.”
The recent flyer, writing on the subreddit thread r/americanairlines, applauds a gate agent at the Pensacola, Florida, airport who strongly enforced the correct boarding zone.
AMERICAN AIRLINES EXPANDS ‘GATE LICE’ CRACKDOWN TO MORE THAN 100 AIRPORTS
“A wonderful gate agent this morning at PNS was actively turning away folks from boarding whose zones had not been called,” the Reddit user wrote.
“The flustered and angry zone 9 passenger attempting to board with zone 5 was a hoot,” the user added.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Reddit user for comment.
“Gate lice” refers to passengers who attempt to cut the line and board the plane earlier than their proper boarding zone.
American Airlines has been working on this preventable problem by experimenting with technology that notifies gate agents about flight passengers boarding outside their zone.
AMERICAN AIRLINES CRACKS DOWN AGAINST ‘GATE LICE’ AS AIRPORT PASSENGERS SKIP LINES AMID BOARDING PROCESS
“The new technology is designed to ensure customers receive the benefits of priority boarding with ease and helps improve the boarding experience by providing greater visibility into boarding progress for our team,” an American Airlines spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital reached out to American Airlines for additional comment.
The technology “provides team members with more insight into the number of customers in each boarding group” and “displays anticipated arrival time for incoming flight connections,” according to the airline’s site.
The alert system has not been fully implemented in all airports yet, but a slow rollout appears to be underway across the country.
The airline has actively been calling out flight passengers who are jumping ahead in line and boarding prior to their correct zones.
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“Sounds like AA has been enforcing it more and more of late. This is at least the 5th post [I’ve] seen about this over the past few months,” another Reddit user commented in the thread.
“They have been announcing it before the boarding that they have ‘upgraded’ their scanners to enforce groups. I think I started hearing them say it in January,” another user wrote.
Other social media users on X are commenting on the new alert system that is being implemented.
“It’s always been a dirty little secret that boarding zones are not part of your boarding pass QR code, so when you scan your pass at the gate, the gate agent has no idea what zone you’re in unless they visually look at it,” an X user wrote.
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“The only people that will have a problem with this ARE THE PROBLEM,” another X user wrote.
The “gate lice” alert system was first launched in November, just before the busy holiday travel season.
“The initial positive response from customers and team members has exceeded our expectations, so we are thrilled to leverage this technology to deliver for them ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday,” Julie Rath, American’s senior vice president of airport operations, reservations and service recovery, said in the press release issued in 2024.
This new technology will reportedly continue to be seen at more and more American Airlines gates, with the intent of keeping everyone in their correct boarding zone and not skipping the line.
Jacqueline Whitmore, a former flight attendant and etiquette expert based in Mount Dora, Florida, told Fox News Digital that she is in support of the airlines’ latest tactic.
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“I see this new procedure as a good thing. It will help expedite the boarding process and keep people honest,” Whitmore said.
Princeton murder suspect seen in preppy school photos years before brother’s slaying
The Princeton, New Jersey, man known as a star student in high school who is now accused of killing his brother and a family cat likely had a mental health breakdown that ultimately destroyed his family, according to a legal expert.
Matthew Hertgen, 31, is accused of murdering his 26-year-old brother, Joseph Hertgen, in the family’s Princeton apartment, allegedly with a knife and golf club. He is also charged with animal cruelty related to the death of a cat.
One of Matthew Hertgen’s friends from Toms River High School told Fox News Digital that he has “nothing bad to say” about the former soccer player, who went on to study at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Joseph Hertgen also played soccer at Toms River before he was recruited to the University of Michigan.
“He was just a cool kid who played soccer, got good grades, funny,” the friend said, adding that “Matt was a cool guy” and the recent news “just doesn’t sound like him.”
PRINCETON PREPPY ACCUSED IN BROTHER’S GRUESOME MURDER HEADS TO COURT: WHAT TO KNOW
But that was about 14 years ago, when both Matthew and Joseph had their whole lives ahead of them. One high school yearbook page shows that Matthew Hertgen, along with another female classmate, were voted “Best All Around.”
More recently, Joseph was working as an analyst at Locust Point Capital in Red Bank at the time of his death. Matthew’s professional career remains unclear.
In May and September of last year, Matthew shared some disturbing graphic poetry as well as strange abstract artwork on his Facebook profile.
PRINCETON MAN SHARED EERIE POEMS ON SOCIAL MEDIA BEFORE ALLEGEDLY KILLING FORMER STAR ATHLETE BROTHER, CAT
“These are brilliant individuals. The intellectual ability is there,” attorney Daniel Gotlin of Gotlin & Jaffe in New York told Fox News Digital of the Hertgen brothers, but he added that Matthew “obviously” had some “mental health issues.”
Gotlin, who is not involved in the Hertgen case, successfully tried a mental health defense in 2014 while representing a man accused of fatally stabbing his mother. He believes Matthew’s public defenders will consider an insanity plea for the 31-year-old suspect, which would ensure that he is kept in the custody of a mental health facility rather than prison until and if he is determined not to be a threat to society.
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“There’s absolutely no doubt he’s got a phychiatric disorder,” he said. “I don’t know what kind of physical evidence they have on him, but if [prosecutors] have got a good case, you’ve got to look at a psychiatric defense.”
Gotlin believes it is “very unlikely this guy would see the light of day” if he were to be committed to a mental health facility.
PRINCETON MAN ACCUSED OF KILLING FORMER STAR ATHLETE BROTHER, CAT WITH GOLF CLUB, KNIFE NEAR IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL
The defense attorney noted the possibility of schizophrenia, which typically appears in men when they are in their late teens and early 20s through their late 20s.
Hertgen appeared virtually for a remote pretrial detention hearing in Mercer County on Thursday morning. His family was not in attendance.
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Assistant deputy public defender Jason Matey, assistant prosecutor Tim McCann and Judge Amber Gibbs ultimately decided to reschedule for March 6 to allow both prosecutors and the defense more time to gather discovery, or information about Hertgen’s case.
Princeton police initially responded to a 911 call on Feb. 22 around 11:16 p.m. reporting a fire and a dead body at the Michelle Mews Apartments complex.
Upon arrival, police found Matthew Hertgen, who was determined to be the 911 caller, in the residence along with his brother’s body, which “exhibited signs of blunt force trauma and lacerations,” the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office said in a press release.
Police believe Matthew may have ripped out his brother’s eye and tried to eat it, a law enforcement source told the New York Post.
Authorities have yet to describe any kind of motive related to Hertgen’s murder charges.
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Gotlin said that while it’s uncommon for people from affluent families to descend into a mental health crisis that ends in death, it is not unheard of. He mentioned the case of Luigi Mangione, the suspect accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December on a sidewalk in Manhattan.
Mangione graduated valedictorian from the Gilman School, a private all-boys high school in Baltimore, in 2016. He went on to receive his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.
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“It’s not common, but the best example of it is Luigi Mangione. He grew up, went to the best schools, private schools … and he’s obviously mentally ill,” Gotlin said. “There’s no question about it. People get sick. Mental illness is something, unfortunately, the medical industry hasn’t really conquered.”
Joseph Hertgen was pronounced dead at the scene, and his autopsy results are pending. Local and state officials are investigating the 26-year-old’s death as a homicide.
An investigation into Joseph’s death is ongoing.