On Saturday, May 30th, during the second day of demonstrations for George Floyd in Brooklyn, an NYPD vehicle stopped at the intersection of St. Marks and Flatbush Avenues when it was met with a group of protesters:
Seconds later, another pulled up and stalled out too:
Then suddenly, without warning, both charged forward and chopped through the crowd, tossing pedestrians about in their wake:
Thankfully, no one was taken to the hospital. But later that evening, addressing the NYPD’s decision to ostensibly bulldoze a few dozen New Yorkers, Mayor Bill de Blasio told NY1 News:
It is a troubling video, and I wish the officers hadn’t done that, but they were being surrounded by people who were attacking that vehicle and they were in a situation where it was getting more and more dangerous, and they had to get out of there.
If those protesters had just gotten out of the way and not created an attempt to surround that vehicle, we would not be talking about this situation.
What? Why couldn’t the cops have backed away from the impasse? They were never “surrounded.” They had two full lanes behind them to use:
Besides, was ramming the crowd the best thing to do? The safest, most courteous, professionally respectful action to choose? I guess then the Mayor would have us believe not a single police vehicle in the vast city arsenal has the ability to run in reverse.
All screenshots from a video by Pierre Garapon. Courtesy of his Twitter account. May 30, 2020.
Intersection of Flatbush and St. Marks Avenues. Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.