When tens of thousands of New Yorkers took to the streets to protest racist police violence after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month, many demonstrators were met with NYPD batons, pepper spray, Tasers, and fists.
Between May 28th and June 7th, the NYPD estimated 132 protesters were injured during protests, based on medical treatment forms filed for protest-related arrests. The department has said “this is without a doubt an undercount” since it doesn’t include those with injuries that weren’t obvious, people who didn’t report injuries, or those who were injured but not arrested (most detainments related to the protests were for violating the city's historic six-night curfew).
The NYPD says 354 officers also suffered injuries during that time period, though paperwork is incomplete and the types of injuries have not been provided. The NYPD did not respond to requests for comment or questions. A handful of officers are facing investigations or discipline for their conduct. One was charged with misdemeanor assault for shoving a protester to the ground, resulting in a concussion and a seizure.
A composite of photos of protesters who say they were injured by the NYPD.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has praised the "restraint" of the NYPD, and Commissioner Dermot Shea suggested that police officers experienced most of the violence.
“I honestly can’t tell you a protester that was seriously injured," Shea said on June 4th, the day after officers were seen charging a group of peaceful protesters in Brooklyn, and one day before legal observers and essential workers were ambushed for being out after curfew during a demonstration in the Bronx.
Here are the accounts of nine New Yorkers who say they were injured—in some cases quite seriously—by NYPD officers during the protests. If you have a story you’d like to share, please contact [email protected].
Shellyne Rodriguez
Activist with Take Back The Bronx. Injured June 4th in the South Bronx
I’m currently wearing braces on order of a doctor for the next two weeks, and I need to see a neurologist to make sure I don’t have permanent nerve damage, which would suck for me because I need my hands. I’m a visual artist. My hands turned blue. These motherfuckers. It took four cops and three kinds of pliers to cut them off. It took 15 minutes. They couldn’t get the plier beneath the plastic because they were so tight. I could see the fear in their eyes. They knew they had gone too far because they could not get them off. I felt like I was targeted because I was in the front. As soon as they got me inside the black van, they zipped the ties and cut off the air conditioner. It was 86 degrees in there with 13 bodies who had been pepper sprayed. People's masks removed and suffering with zip tie torture.
Jason Rosenberg
Activist with ACT UP NY. Injured June 2nd in Manhattan
I was attending a DecrimNY and Queer Detainee Empowerment Project rally at Stonewall and it was centering the essentially trans and gender non conforming black experience of violence and police violence that happens. We shut down the West Side Highway and went basically down through Tribeca and to Lower Manhattan. I was with maybe eight others and we linked arms in civil disobedience and we were kind of moving towards the sidewalk because we saw a bunch of cops really head forth our way, and then they just started beating us. My mask was thrown away and my glasses were off. I was beaten by batons, by feet, fists, by several cops. I don’t really remember at all. But I remember just opening my eyes to my glasses on the floor and then a pool of blood by my head.
By then I was cuffed by zip ties and then brought to the other group on the ground—that was in the intersection of 14th and 5th near the New School. I think my main concern was also my zipties were way too tight and my hands were numb. and I was pleading with them to loosen it or cut it off so I could get new ones. My arm was dangling because it was broken, little did I know. I thought it was dislocated, and it would be easy to just pop in, but it was a lot worse than I expected. I got nine staples on my head. It was clear that they were given some type of directive to use the curfew as an excuse to escalate violence and abuse.
Iliana
Bronxite injured June 4th in the South Bronx
We were surrounded by cops on bicycles, and they were wearing this sort of body armor. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I started hyperventilating. People are being pushed towards me. All of the sudden there was a guy in front of me whose helmet wasn't buckled. And one of the special operations cops was pulling him down by the helmet strap. And to me, it looked like he was trying to take off his helmet and the cop had, you know, the helmet strap in one hand and a raised baton in the other hand. So I feared that he was going to take off the helmet and strike that person in the head. So I pushed forward and got in front of that person that was being pulled down by the helmet. And then that cop, he struck me in the head with a baton. Thankfully, I was wearing a helmet. And then he hit me in the abdomen. Thankfully, I had a raincoat that provided some padding.
I was being told to kneel to the ground, and I couldn't because there was so much chaos going on. There was no space for me to kneel down. And I just started yelling, "I'm not resisting arrest. I'm not resisting arrest." And then they forced me to the ground, face down and put cuffs on me. And after cuffs were placed on me, I was struck on my right buttocks with a baton after I was cuffed. And to me, that felt like an exhibition of sexual dominance and power over me, and trying demean me as a woman, that is tied face down. I was also struck in the leg, but I don’t remember what happened. I really don't know how much time had passed. I don't know how long I was lying face down on the ground until someone picked me up.
Henry Luna
Activist with People's Monday. Injured June 4th in the South Bronx
I'm standing on the other side [of a row of police] shooting pictures as another one of the organizers actually is standing in the front row. When I saw her, [a police officer] had his hands around her neck. This is a woman. It could be anyone—black, white, whatever. It's a human being, being choked to death. As a black man, this is very emotional for me. All I can think, was like, Eric Garner. And he had [his hands] around her neck. I had no more fear, I went near the situation to ask her if she was okay, and that’s when he turned around, just punched me in the face, and then knocked out one tooth, [hit] my ear. And then basically a whole bunch of cops came. And then the cops just kept pushing me, saying "get away from here, get away from here." My tooth was out, my head was ringing, then I just left. I needed to get away from there. It’s been a lot. They know us, that’s what bothered me the most. We’ve been brutalized, but not at this level.
Logan Clark
Head analyst at a city agency. Injured May 30th in Flatbush, Brooklyn
We started marching through Flatbush and throughout the afternoon we came to several standstills with the police. We were moving back and the line sort of halted up again as we got pushed back and we were facing west at this point in time. Then more projectiles started coming in, and then they ordered us to move back, and we moved back, we were complying. Then all of a sudden, they started to break ranks on us, and they rushed into the crowd and started beating people. I get hit with an indirect shot of pepper spray, it hits my face, I turn away and I start moving back from the melee and then I just got smacked in the head really, really hard. I say "I’m moving, I’m complying." I just put my arms up and they kept beating me on the arms, and then I get pushed into the brick wall that’s right there, again, still on the sidewalk, being told to get out of there. They’re basically holding me in place and keep pushing me up against the wall and not letting me move. I get pushed out onto the hood of a car and sort of fall down into the street. I lost my glasses by this point in time.
I managed to get a safe distance away and put my hand up to my head, and came away covered in blood. I got seen by two nurses who were providing medical attention in the crowd—they’re fucking G’s. I managed to catch a cab with my girlfriend and get to New York Presbyterian, Brooklyn, where I got two staples, a tetanus booster, and saw a whole bunch of cops just hanging around the ER without surgical masks on. After that, I got discharged and got home to Bed-Stuy around 3 in the morning.
Deon Richards
Fresh Direct worker. Suffered a heart attack June 4th in the South Bronx
They started arresting folks in the street. I was on the sidewalk. Then they started snatching everybody off the sidewalks. All I know is I got pepper sprayed. I got slammed but my stomach hit the floor first. They had a knee on my back while they [were] arresting me. From there they they already had everybody sitting in the middle of the street. After that, I just felt weak, I passed out. [They took me] to Lincoln Hospital. And then that’s when they took the handcuffs off of me. They said [the EKG] was suggesting I was having a heart attack at that time. After that they discharged me the very next day due to the coronavirus.
When they discharged me, they said there was still something wrong with my heart [and to] come back to the hospital in three weeks. I had heart surgery when I was younger, [but I haven’t had problems since.] I can’t sleep. Like I get nervous when I go outside. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ve seen it get crazy before, but it got crazy, crazy like I’d never seen. It was brutal to us young people, to older people, everybody.
Allie Holloway
Protester injured on June 3rd at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn
The protest was initially stopped on Cadman Plaza West and Tillary Street by a line of cops. As we were walking the cops continued to try and form lines in between protesters, which caused confusion as to where we were being corralled. There was a commotion to my left that seemed to involve a bike, and then the cops began charging the crowd. An officer forced me down to the sidewalk with his nightstick and then began beating me with it. I closed my eyes and tried to protect my head but was hit multiple times on my head, arms, shoulder and back. Then I was handcuffed with the plastic flexi-cuff so tight by that cop that my wrists are bruised. I was handed to two different officers that walked me to the bus for transport. While walking to the bus, I asked a commanding officer in a white shirt why a violent arrest was necessary for an unarmed protester. The commanding officer, in front of his co-workers, called me a bitch and slammed my head into the window of the bus.
Marti Gould Cummings
Drag artist and city council candidate. Injured June 2nd on Manhattan's West Side Highway
A group of friends of mine, my husband included, went to a peaceful rally outside of Stonewall to honor the lives of black trans people who have been killed by police and who have been subject to police violence and brutality. When that was finished, we walked through the West Village, peacefully protesting, and made our way to the West Side Highway. By the time we got to the highway it just was around 8 o’clock, when the curfew had set in. Police kettled us in there, and from the direction that we were heading, south, there was a whole line of police. And they came very forcefully towards everyone with their batons flailing. [They were] just grabbing people and arresting them and hitting them. I was arrested. My husband saw me get hit in head with a baton. The video shows four cops on top of me. I remember getting knocked down and the next thing I knew I was arrested.
We went to Brooklyn Central Booking and in that time, they had pulled our masks [off] to take our picture, while cuffed. The majority of police were not wearing masks themselves, and of course with no social distancing in the corrections van or the jail. I now have a concussion that I’m still dealing with. I had to get medication for spasms in my arms, from the cuffs, for nerve stuff. And I have a couple of follow up appointments coming up. My medical stuff is pretty easy compared to a lot of other protesters. I think it’s also important to remember that my interaction with police as a white person, I get to go home. How many black people interact with the police, innocent black people who interact with the police, and they lose their life? That’s what we’re protesting. It’s time to hold the police accountable for their actions.
Joshua Mudgett
Furloughed fashion designer. Injured June 4th in Midtown outside of Trump Tower
The march had come from Gracie Mansion, down 5th Avenue turned right at 59th and then went right to Trump International Hotel. The curfew of 8 o'clock had come around. We were all kneeling. There was a guy on a loudspeaker reading poetry. When [the NYPD] started attacking, they weren’t attacking the white people at the front. They closed off all exits. The ones who remained at Trump Hotel were basically [cornered] and arrested and beaten. We had leaders on the protest on megaphones saying "do not provoke them."
A police officer had shoved this girl, maybe two feet away. He had shoved her pretty hard and she fell to the ground and scraped her knee and then he turned towards her. So I then kneeled down to pick her up, and when I did that, my foot was kicked really hard and I twisted it and I was hit with a baton on my neck and head. I got between her and the cop, so I picked her up and I—in a moment forgetting the pain—didn't even realize I was hurt.
I lost my main employment because of COVID, so I put off going to the hospital for a couple of days. Then it just progressively got worse. Eventually I went to the hospital. I have hairline fractures on my foot and my ankle and one hairline fracture on my neck and contusions on my head and spine. He really kicked my ass thoroughly.
These interviews have been edited and condensed.
With reporting from Jay Vanasco.
