Multiple pedestrians struck during BLM protest in Midtown: NYPD
A car plowed into pedestrians at a BLM protest against ICE detentions in Midtown Manhattan on Friday afternoon — “tossing people into the air” in a horrifying incident caught on video, witnesses and police said.
The shocking footage shows the vehicle stopped at 39th Street and Third Avenue just after 4 p.m. with protesters in front of the car — seconds before its female driver floors it, plowing into the crowd.
One protester can be seen rolling up onto the car’s hood and into the windshield before tumbling to the pavement.
“A car just ran through a group of protesters, tossing people into the air,” said witness Mark Apolloa in video from the scene.
“I saw individuals that were hit with the car flying up and over it. The windshield is totally cracked,” he said.
The six victims suffered non-life-threatening injuries, cops said.
A 52-year-old woman from Queens was driving her 29-year-old daughter in the car when the incident occurred, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
The female driver was stopped a block or so away by a traffic scooter cop after hitting the pedestrians, sources said. Apolloa said cops detained two people who chased after her.
The unidentified driver told cops she was surrounded by protesters marching illegally against traffic and that they started banging on her car, sources said.
She stepped on the gas to get away from them and that’s when she struck people in the intersection, sources said.
The woman was being held at the 13th Precinct and being questioned, sources said.
The Black Lives Matter group had been marching “in solidarity” with those being held on ICE detainers at the Bergen County Jail and currently on a hunger strike, according to a social-media feed from the demonstration.
The Jersey prisoners on hunger strike are protesting the conditions under which they are kept, among other things, according to Patch.
They were picked up by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
After Friday’s protest crash in Manhattan, at least two dozen cops flooded the intersection and surrounded an injured person being treated by EMS, according to video posted to social media.
At one point, police pulled a person with a sign away from the injured pedestrian and pushed them off — causing a stand-off between cops and a group.
The NYPD is asking drivers to avoid the area.