Wu Committee Deposited $30,000 From Boston Bruins-Owning Billionaire Family Members Since 2023 (1)

In December 2023, individual deposits of $1,000 each from 11 members of the billionaire family which has owned both the for-profit Buffalo-based Delaware North multi-billion-dollar “food service and hospitality” and “entertainment” company and the Boston Bruins hockey team in recent years, the Jacobs Family, were deposited in the bank account of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s campaign committee, according to data posted on the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance [OCPF] website.

And 4 months later, on April 25, 2024, Boston Mayor Wu authorized Boston Police Department cops to enter the campus of Emerson College in Downtown Boston and arrest 118 mostly student antiwar and Palestinian solidarity Movement demonstrators, who were protesting against the IDF’s genocidal war and expressing support for BDS campaign demands.

Then 6 days later---on May 1, 2024—after University of Buffalo [UB] students gathered on their college’s campus lawn, to participate in a peaceful protest organized by the University’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (“SJP”) and some of the antiwar and Palestinian solidarity Movement protesters attempted to set up a small encampment on UB’s lawn, the following happened (according to a document filed in U.S. District Court, Western District of New York on May 1, 2025 by the plaintiffs’ lawyer related to the Ahmed, et al vs. City of Buffalo, et al civil lawsuit):

“Officers of the UB Police (campus police) and other law enforcement (including Erie County Sheriff’s deputies, Amherst Police, Kenmore Police, New York State Police, and Tonawanda Police) approached the protesters and ordered them to remove the tents within 15–20 minutes…The demonstrators immediately…removed all materials intended for the encampment from the grounds…Meanwhile, the demonstration on the…lawn went forward…for a number of hours….Protesters chanted slogans (“Free Palestine” and “End the genocide,” among others) and held signs…

“By 8:00 p.m., dozens of officers were staged in the areas surrounding the protest, many wearing tactical gear…. Around 8:00 p.m…. officers announced by megaphone that all individuals must vacate the protest site by 8:23 p.m. or face arrest…Officers from multiple agencies charged into the crowd at or just after 8:23 p.m. and began a mass arrest operation…Body cameras and witness videos show a phalanx of officers converging on the seated protesters from different sides…

“In essence, law enforcement from at least a half-dozen agencies `descended’ on the protest at once, executing a coordinated plan to encircle and arrest the demonstrators at the arbitrary deadline….Law enforcement officers tackled, restrained, zip-tied, and handcuffed dozens of protesters — including students, parents, observers, and individuals wearing visible religious attire. Several officers used force on individuals already seated or kneeling….Throughout the dispersal, protesters could be heard crying out in pain…Many officers applied physical restraints in a manner that caused injuries: knees placed on backs and heads, arms twisted behind backs, wrists bound with excessively tight zip ties or cuffs….One officer ran up to a young woman,…who was standing still, swept her legs out from under her, and drove her face first into the ground. Other officers simultaneously ripped protestors apart from each other, throwing them down. Numerous protesters…ended up pinned on the ground under piles of officers. Police applied knee pressure to people’s backs, shoulders, and heads, in some cases pressing protesters’ faces into the dirt or concrete…Many officers were dressed in tactical gear or helmets…”

And some members of the billionaire Jacobs family who had made $1,000 individual campaign contributions to Boston Mayor Wu’s campaign committee prior to April and May of 2024 have historically apparently exercised a special influence at the University of Buffalo in Buffalo, New York.

As a March 13, 2025 University of Buffalo [UB] press release noted:

“Jeremy `Jerry’ M. Jacobs Jr., chief executive officer of Delaware North, a global hospitality and entertainment company, has been appointed chair of the University at Buffalo Council by [New York] Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“The UB Council serves as the primary oversight and advisory body to UB and its president and senior officers…`The UB Council is pivotal to our university’s mission of excellence, so we are delighted that Jerry Jacobs will be serving as chairman,’ said UB President Satish K. Tripathi….

“…As CEO of Delaware North, a role he shares with his brothers, Lou and Charlie, Jacobs oversees the company’s seven operating subsidiaries…He…served three terms on the UB Foundation Board, including time spent on the executive board. He serves as co-chair of the dean’s advisory council for UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences….He also serves as an alternate governor to the National Hockey League’s Boston Bruins…

“Jacobs succeeds his father, Jeremy M. Jacobs Sr.,…who has served as chair of the UB Council since 1998. The elder Jacobs is chairman of Delaware North, and chairman and governor of the Boston Bruins. The Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB is named after the Jacobs family in honor of their historic gift to UB in 2015.

“`On behalf of the entire UB community, I would like to thank Jeremy Jacobs Sr. for his tremendous contributions to the UB Council’ Tripathi said. `He has been a trusted advisor to me’…”

In addition, according to a September 6. 2017 article by then-Public Accountability Initiative Senior Research Analyst Rob Galbraith, titled “Jeremy Jacobs: Buffalo's Billionaire Deportation Profiteer”:

“The Jacobs family are major donors to and have tremendous influence over the University at Buffalo.

“Jeremy Jacobs Sr. has served on the University at Buffalo Council since 1997 and has been its chairman since 1998. The UB Council is the governing body at the University at Buffalo, nominating UB’s president for approval by the SUNY trustees…Jacobs Sr. is also an emeritus trustee at the University at Buffalo Foundation, possibly in violation of SUNY guidelines, which specify that `no members of the Campus Council may serve on the Foundation Board or the governance body of any Affiliate.’ In fact, for the majority of years since 2001, either Jacobs or his son, Jeremy Jr., has sat on the board of the private UB Foundation, which controls the University at Buffalo’s $1 billion endowment as well as many university properties, including the $375 million new medical school bearing Jacobs’s name on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.”

Then, following the April 25, 2024 arrests of 118 anti-Gaza war protesters on Emerson College’s campus and the May 1, 2024 arrests of anti-Gaza war protesters on the University of Buffalo’s campus, Boston Mayor Wu’s campaign committee deposited another 11 individual deposits of $1,000 each from Jacobs family members in December 2024, another 3 individual deposits of $1,000 each from Jacobs family members in April 2025 and another 9 individual deposits of $1,000 each from Jacobs family members in late July 2025, according to Massachusetts OCPF website-posted data. (end of part 1. To be continued)