Near the end of another day of street protests, property destruction, and violent clashes between police and demonstrators on Saturday, Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded with protesters to go home.
"We appreciate and respect all peaceful protests, but now it is time for people to go home," de Blasio told reporters at brief press conference at 11:30 p.m. at the NYC Emergency Management headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn. "If you went out peacefully to make a point about the need for change, you have been heard and change is coming in the city. I have no doubt about that. It's time to go home so we can all move forward."
The third straight day of protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis brought angry demonstrators into the streets in all five boroughs. Most of the protesters marched peacefully, but there were incidents of property destruction. Three face federal charges for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at a police vehicle. An NYPD spokesperson said 47 police vehicles were damaged on Saturday alone.
The mayor asserted that protesters "trying to create a violent, negative situation with police" were outsiders not from the neighborhoods in which they are demonstrating. "It's clear that a different element has come into play here who are trying to hurt police officers and trying to damage their vehicles," the mayor said. "And so, it's clear that a different element has come into play here who are trying to hurt police officers and trying to damage their vehicles."
De Blasio's language echoed the "outside agitator" canard frequently deployed in the early days of the Civil Rights movement, when white Southern officials dismissed local political activism as the work of organizers from the north.
Police clash with protesters in Flatbush, Brooklyn, May 30, 2020
The NYPD was seen in numerous videos violently attacking protesters and using pepper spray to disperse crowds. In one incident caught on video Saturday, two police officers drove into a crowd of demonstrators who were blocking Flatbush Avenue in Park Slope and throwing debris at their vehicles.
De Blasio called the video upsetting but placed blame solely on the protesters.
"It's inappropriate for protesters to surround a police vehicle and threaten police officers," de Blasio said. "That's wrong on its face, and that hasn't happened in the history of protest in NYC."
De Blasio said that while he wished the officers "hadn't done that," the protesters were to blame. "Officers have to get out of the situation," de Blasio said. "It's a very, very tense situation and imagine what it'd be like if you're just trying to do your job and you see hundreds of people converging upon you. I'm not gonna blame officers who are trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation. ...The folks who were converging on that police car did the wrong thing to begin with and they created an untenable situation. I wish the officers would have found a different approach, but let's begin at the beginning, the protestors in that video did the wrong thing to surround that police car. Period."
It's unclear whether anyone was injured. An NYPD spokesperson declined to comment on the incident, but said that 345 protesters were arrested, and 33 officers were injured on Saturday. The spokesperson could not provide a detailed breakdown on the charges or injuries.
It's also unclear why the mayor contends that the only way for officers to "get out of the situation" was to drive forward into a crowd.
In a series of tweets, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said he was proud of the department's handling of the protests, and called the demonstrations "a mob bent solely on taking advantage of a moment in American history, to co-opt the cause of equality that we all must uphold, to intentionally inflict chaos, mayhem, and injury just for the sake of doing so."
However, Richard Buery, Jr, a former Deputy Mayor under de Blasio, questioned Shea on Twitter, calling the Flatbush Avenue incident a crime.
With Sydney Pereira
