New York City officials were looking for a peaceful way forward as the city entered a fourth day of protests against police brutality that have left police cars burned and led to the arrest of hundreds of people.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said he had no plans to impose a curfew Sunday, unlike other major U.S. cities, and smaller cities throughout the state.
De Blasio said city police showed “tremendous restraint overall” during the weekend’s protests, but promised an investigation of video showing two police cruisers lurching into a crowd of demonstrators on a Brooklyn street. He was appointing two city officials to conduct an independent review of how the protests unfolded and how they were handled by the police.
“We all better get back to the humanity here,” de Blasio said at a Sunday morning briefing. “The protesters are human beings. They need to be treated with tremendous respect. The police officers are human beings. They need to be treated with tremendous respect.”
Hours after he spoke, demonstrations resumed. Hundreds of people gathered on a plaza in downtown Brooklyn, chanting “No justice, no peace,” and “Black lives matter,” while making occasional insulting hand gestures at a line of police officers protecting the arena where the NBA’s Nets play.
Largely peaceful protests around the city Saturday gave way to scattered clashes between police and protesters later in the evening. Demonstrators smashed shop windows, threw objects at officers, set police vehicles on fire and blocked roads. Graffiti was scrawled on Manhattan’s famed St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
There were multiple complaints about police unnecessarily shoving or bludgeoning protesters and spraying crowds with chemicals.
New York City police said 345 people were arrested, 33 officers were injured and 27 police vehicles were damaged or destroyed by fire. There were no major injuries reported. Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said some peaceful demonstrations were “hijacked” by people with violent intent.
“We’re going to make sure that everyone has the right to peacefully protest and assemble,” Shea said said at a briefing with the mayor. “But we are not going to tolerate destruction of property, having our officers put into harm’s way or any civilians put into harm’s way.”
Similar protests flared around the nation in response to the Minnesota death of George Floyd. Floyd, who was black, died Monday after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck until he stopped breathing.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the National Guard is on standby and that hundreds of additional troopers are being made available in Rochester and Buffalo.
“We expect additional protests tonight and we’re preparing for such,” Cuomo said at his daily briefing.
The governor also said state Attorney General Letitia James’s investigation into actions by NYPD officers and protesters will include any protests held throughout the weekend.
Cleanup was under way Sunday morning in New York City, which is still under a lockdown enacted two months ago when it became the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.
At least five burned-out NYPD vehicles that remained near Manhattan’s Union Square were towed early Sunday afternoon. People walked around broken glass on the street to take pictures of the vehicles.
A handful of protesters rallied peacefully in the square, holding Black Lives Matter signs and giving speeches denouncing police violence while families were picnicking nearby.
Ken Kidd, who lives a few blocks south of the park, was among the people inspecting the damage to the vehicles and had witnessed Saturday’s demonstrations. He said protesters and police tried to remain peaceful at the start before the stress of a city heavily hit by the coronavirus came out.
“I think a community can only say ‘Enough’ so many times and the words aren’t heard so then they got to take action and that’s what happened last night. That’s what I watched happen last night,” Kidd said.
The independent review ordered by de Blasio will be conducted by New York City Corporation Counsel James Johnson, who is the city’s chief lawyer, and Margaret Garnett, commissioner of the Department of Investigation, which typically investigates suspected wrongdoing and fraud by city employees.
(AP)
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5 Responses
Does anyone remember Mayer David Dinkins?
His clone his running the show now. No wonder there is chaos.
Keep voting for Democrats, apparently they are very successful in getting the highest death rate and the highest unemployment when it comes to an epidemic and “peaceful protests”
No curfew?!!!! There is a prolonged lockdown for the coronovirus but no curfew to stop looting and murder? NYC, you need a new mayor!!!!
If anyone should die as a result of the riots in NYC their blood will be on our genius mayors hands. Curfews work!
Black logic as I see it: calling each other N word – ok, killing each other by the thousands every year – ok, 1 black killed by white cop and suddenly they care – in response burn down their own neighborhoods making it more of a $#@!hole then it already was. Why do they act like savages after each incident such as this? What if white people did the same? One way to stop this behavior is to bring in the tanks. A few rounds of live fire could do wonders.
While I understand and put nothing past DemocRATs who have shown they will go to any extremes from an attempted presidential coup to inflicting an economic depression (Bill Maher expressed this on his show) to gain power,
In a nation of 320 Million people a few hundred people compromising all races die every year by police, some justly some unjustly. Social Media and the MSM determine which ones you see and the narrative they give them.
What do you want to bet social media boosted the video of the this tragedy hoping to fuel riots as diabolical revenge against the President removing their protections?
Most never heard of Tony Timpa, a white man unjustly asphyxiated by police on video in Dallas. His killers laughed at him while he died and they remain free. No protests, no justice, no equal media coverage pre-protest.
Who benefits from the death of George Floyd?
The answer, of course, is that the forces of chaos and destruction (i.e. Left – wing DemocRATs anti-American, anti-Trump) benefit from his murder. The more chaos and destruction is unleashed during this election year, the more the media hypes up the disaster and assigns blame to President Trump. Logically, it’s absurd, since President Trump had nothing to do with the murder of George Floyd. But emotionally, the media propaganda messaging whips up fear, anger and frustration — emotions that will largely be translated into anti-Trump sentiment in the coming elections.
This comes on the heels of Joe Biden telling a black interview host, “You ain’t black” if you don’t vote for me. The black community was rightfully outraged. Democrats experienced a wave of horror in old “crazy Joe’s” comments, realizing that if they didn’t do something to get the black vote to swing back to their side, many black Americans would vote for Trump, who isn’t someone who talks condescendingly to the black community (like Biden just did).
Right on time, almost as if scripted for the media in advance, comes the story the Left has been dreaming of: “White cop murders innocent black man in broad daylight.” Suddenly the narrative shifts. Joe Biden’s comment is quickly forgotten, and the media tries to redirect blame to Trump.
Left-wing provocateurs (Antifa – Black life Maters) send in the militants to torch buildings and cause mayhem. Certain “race baiter” black leaders whip up the hatred and division for maximum effect, utterly avoiding what they should be doing which is calling for all humans to rise up against the real enemies of humanity: Globalists, Big Tech and the depopulation vaccine engineers who will soon be targeting black people all across the world with a “kill switch” coronavirus vaccine.
For the globalists to maintain control of humanity, they must maintain the hatred and division between the races, for if all humans banded together to rise up and defeat the globalists, the people would achieve an immediate victory. The only way the globalists maintain their criminal control and mass genocide operations is to convince certain groups of people to go to war with other groups. It’s all a distraction from the real threat to us all: Evil, demonic globalists who despise all human beings.
the truth is- The Zohar says that your comment is the path of the rashaim. It says that “skin” is the “appearance” of a man. It then says that the path of the rashaim is to judge by “appearance” (that is, skin) and the tzaddikim avoid judging by “appearance” (that is, skin) and instead by actions.
Al kein, you can’t say “all” blacks are like this. Those that are, are, and we should judge by actions. But if you assume all are…..well, that’s the rashaim’s way. Why say things that the Zohar says a Rasha says?