NYPD cracks down on curfew-breaking protesters on seventh day of unrest
NYPD officers cracked down on curfew-breaking protesters in Manhattan and Brooklyn on Wednesday, making at least 60 arrests on the seventh day of citywide demonstrations against police brutality.
Cops were quicker to enforce the 8 p.m. curfew than they had been on Tuesday, when one group of protesters marched well past deadline, getting cut off by officers on the Manhattan Bridge in a tense, hours-long standoff.
At close to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, cops charged a crowd at Cadman Plaza West that had been trying to get onto the Brooklyn Bridge, knocking people over and making several arrests after a brief stalemate.
“Move, move,” the cops yelled, some wielding their batons. The protesters erupted into a chant of: “United we will never be defeated.”
One female officer appeared to have been injured in the melee.
Cops also moved in on a group of protesters who had turned away from the bridge and surrounded a police vehicle.
At around the same time, a similar situation was occurring in Midtown, with cops swarming into a crowd that had come from Union Square.
The protesters, who were chanting and cheering, while turning onto Central Park South at West 59th street, were boxed in from behind by police.
“Everybody out here is going to jail!” one white-shirt shouted, as the cops cuffed more than a dozen people, with the rest of the demonstrators fleeing.
They had planned on marching to Trump Tower on 5th Avenue when the cops moved in.
Arrests continued down 3rd Avenue, with dozens seen sitting with their hands in zip ties on 54th Street shortly after 9 p.m.
NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan, who was at the scene, said there would be “no more tolerance” for curfew-breaking. He said at least 60 people were arrested.
“They have to be off the street,” he said. “The area here has been hurt enough. Businesses here have been suffering. Residents here have been suffering. We’re just not going to take it.”
The curfew has “really has helped us tremendously,” Monahan said, adding: “We were really able to get our job done instead of having to sit back and wait for any looting that might’ve happened.”
He implored future protesters to march during the day but to go home by the time the clock struck 8.
The arrests happened as Mayor Bill de Blasio was being interviewed on a radio program — and claimed that peaceful protests would be allowed, even after curfew.
“I’ve asked protesters to go home at the time of the curfew… but if they keep going peacefully, about the streets of the city that’s going to be respected,” Hizzoner said on a special showing of “Open Line” on WBLS-FM 107.5
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who was at the Cadman Plaza demonstration, said he was ashamed of the mayor for the mass arrests.
“The force used on nonviolent protestors was disgusting. No looting/no fires.Chants of ‘peaceful protest,'” Williams tweeted. “@NYPDnews was simply enforcing an ill advised curfew.”
“What happened was completely avoidable,” he added. “I’m so ashamed of @NYCMayor.”