A viral video of New York City police officers dragging a protester off the street during a demonstration Tuesday raises new concerns about police in the United States. In the video, plainclothes officers grabbed a protester in the middle of an intersection and, in broad daylight, took her to an unmarked van. CBS New York reports that the 18-year-old woman was wanted to spray-paint the lenses of six police cameras. Other officers in uniform with bicycles also intervened during the arrest.
The surprising scene in New York is reminiscent of the situation in Portland, where threatening militarized federal officials have been patrolling protests in the city. One difference is that in New York, the officers were part of the New York Police Department, not deployed by the Department of Homeland Security. New York police confirmed the arrest and said the officers were part of their command squad, which uses unmarked trucks to locate those involved in crimes. “Regarding a video on social media that took place at 2 Ave and 25 St, a woman detained in a van without identification was sought for damaging police cameras during 5 separate criminal incidents in and around City Hall Park and the surrounding area “The statement said. . “The agents who arrested him were robbed with stones and bottles.”
It’s unclear if the “rocks and bottles” claim is true, but it has increasingly become the general justification for any police action, no matter how severe, against protesters, just as officers use the “dreaded” for his life “as a defense for offensive action, often deadly. It is difficult to refute and deflects the responsibility of the police for their actions. City Council President Corey Johnson called the meeting “incredibly disturbing.” Brooklyn Councilman Brad Lander tweeted that “anxious about what is happening in Portland, NYPD deploys unidentified vans with plainclothes police officers to make street arrests of protesters feel more like provocation than security public “.
