After a week of anti-Israel protests at City College in New York, an American flag returned to its rightful position on Wednesday.

Viral video footage shows two NYPD officers standing on the flagpole’s base at the school’s Harlem Heights campus and pulling down a Palestinian flag that had been raised by Pro-Hamas student supporters. A school security guard, then tosses the Arab flag to the ground before the American Flag is raised in an impromptu ceremony.

In a statement to the media at NYPD Headquarters in Manhattan, Mayor Eric Adams praised the flag-raising as a patriotic symbol, emphasizing that New Yorkers are “not surrendering” their way of life. 

“That’s our flag folks,” Adams said. “You don’t take over our buildings and put another flag up.”

“It’s despicable that schools will allow another country’s flag to fly in our country. So blame me for being proud to be an American. We’re not surrendering our way of life to anyone.”

The mayor and also blamed the escalation of anti- Israel college protests happening nationwide that also included the takeover of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University this week as the work of radical extremists.

“This is a global problem that young people are being influenced by those who are professionals at radicalizing our children and I am not going to allow that to happen as mayor of the city of New York.” 

According to the New York Post, more than a dozen City College students were taken into custody the day prior after establishing an unauthorized encampment on campus grounds and attempting to seize control of the Howard E. Wille Administration Building.