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The Briefly for June 1, 2020 – The "Sworn to Protect" Edition
Today - Low: 52˚ High: 70˚ Clear throughout the day.
"When will it end? Amadou Diallo. 42 shots. Police officers found not guilty. Sean Bell. 50 shots. Police officers found not guilty. Eric Garner. Choked to death. Police officers let go by the Grand Jury. " -Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn/Queens) on the floor of the House of Representatives
Video: The NYPD attempting to drive over a crowd of protestors. (@chieffymac11)
"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." -Mayor de Blasio (Andrew Sacher for BrooklynVegan)
Video: An NYPD officer grabs a mask of a peaceful protestor whose hands are in the air and pepper sprays him. (@AJRupchandani)
“I really believe that the NYPD knows how to handle protests and respect whoever is protesting but I want to see a light touch because people are undeniably angry for a reason.” -Mayor de Blasio (Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech for amNewYork Metro)
2021 mayoral candidate Dianne Morales's children were pepper-sprayed outside the Barclays Center. "The violence and brutality the NYPD unleashed on protesters was staggering. So much rage targeted toward the very people they are sworn to protect." (@Dianne4NYC)
“I’m not going to blame officers who were trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation.” - Mayor de Blasio (Sally Goldenberg for Politico)
Video: An NYPD officer calls a protestor a "stupid f*****g bitch" and shoves her to the ground (Olivia Niland for BuzzFeed News)
"I want you to know that I’m extremely proud of the way you’ve comported yourselves in the face of such persistent danger, disrespect, and denigration" -NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea
Photos: State Senator Zellnor Myrie was pepper-sprayed by the NYPD. (@zellnor4ny)
“If you or anyone else was inside that police vehicle surrounded by people, you would’ve had a really tough decision to make” -Mayor de Blasio (Ja’han Jones for HuffPost)
Video: An officer from the 44th precinct purposefully coughing on people in the Bronx. (@biggaballa__)
"Anyone who starts off without acknowledging the righteousness of the protest and how do we address the concerns being raised is having an honest conversation." -NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (Todd Maisel for amNewYork Metro)
"New Yorkers need a police department that respects them as citizens and human beings. Until then, this city that has suffered so much will suffer more." - The Nation’s Largest Police Force Is Treating Us as an Enemy by Mara Gay for NY Times
"He should resign because his comments on Saturday night were brazen and disgusting lies. Two New York Police Department vehicles were filmed ramming into protesters behind a barricade. The mayor said the video was “upsetting” but claimed that it was “inappropriate for protesters to surround a police vehicle and threaten police officers,” adding that the officers had to “get out” of that “impossible” situation." - Bill de Blasio Needs to Resign. By Defending Police Violence, He Has Betrayed New Yorkers by Mehdi Hasan for The Intercept.
"After years of disrespect and opprobrium, how did you expect things to turn out? By ignoring it, did you think it would just go away? That’s not how the world works." - George Floyd protests are no time for us to ‘stick to sports’ by Joe Pantorno for amNewYork Metro
"Hitting police officers in the pocket and having them truly face prison time will in fact lead to less killings at the hands of the police. Let’s all make it a point to bring this discussion to every person we know and let’s put political candidates on the spot by asking them how they feel about this concept." - Suing NYPD Officers Personally and Their Police Union for Violating Rights of Citizens Is The Change We Need by Kamal Smith for East New York News
The city remains on PAUSE, with 5/7 metrics met.
Here is how to report police misconduct. (Rachel Holliday Smith for The City)
The mayor's first term started with his taking credit for the beginning of Mayor Bloomberg's ending of stop-and-frisk, followed by the death of Eric Garner. He campaigned on reforming the NYPD and finds himself at the end of his second term defending the NYPD beating, ramming, and pepper spraying his citizens. (Dana Rubenstein and Jeffrey C. Mays for NY Times)
In 2014, after the murder of Eric Garner, Mayor de Blasio vowed to veto a bill that would make a chokehold illegal. The City Council is planning on calling the mayor out on his bullshit by putting the bill forward along with a bill that would require the NYPD to create a disciplinary matrix for all officers that would create a disciplinary standard. The City Council should put the bill forward, regardless of the threat of a veto by the mayor. If Mayor de Blasio doesn't want the chokehold to be illegal, he should be forced to show it. (Gloria Pazmino for NY1)
The NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau is recommending that Officer Francisco Garcia face internal charges for punching and tackling Donni Wright during a social distancing stop on the Lower East Side earlier this month. (Christopher Robbins for Gothamist)
Photos: The Times' most striking photos of the weekend's protests. (Photos by Chang W. Lee, Gabriela Bhaskar, Stephanie Keith, Kirsten Luce, Demetrius Freeman, and Hiroko Masuike for NY Times)
As the NYPD attempted to make arrests at the Barclays Center protest, they loaded people onto an MTA bus. The bus driver refused to drive it and walked the bus. HE has the support of the Transport Workers Union of America and they will act "in solidarity" with the bus drivers of Minneapolis. (Hillary Hanson for HuffPost)
State Attorney General Letitia James will lead an independent investigation into the NYPD’s actions while responding to Friday night’s protest outside Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. (Robert Pozarycki for Brooklyn Paper)
"I'm telling them that if that review looks at those videos and finds that there was improper police conduct there will be ramifications." - Governor Cuomo (Sydney Pereira for Gothamist)
Staten Island's protest was led by Al Sharpton and Gwen Carr, Eric Garner's mother, who finds herself mourning George Floyd, some of whose last words echoed those of her son. (Todd Maisel for amNewYork Metro)
“I’m tired. I’m tired of seeing it, I’m tired of living it, I’m tired of being in fear. Something has to change.” Nearly a thousand protesters took to the streets of Jackson Heights and Woodside Saturday. (Angelica Acevedo, Jeffrey Harrell, Grant Lancaster, and Robert Pozarycki for amNewYork Metro)
The NYPD didn't force every push in the city towards violence, as officers in Queens joined the Jackson Heights protest peacefully. (Zachary Gewelb for QNS)
A timeline of the nationwide George Floyd protests. (Derrick Bryson Taylor for NY Times)
Photos: Burnt out cop cars, graffiti, and anger. Sunday morning around Union Square. (Photos by Stacie Joy for EV Grieve)
The mayor has appointed two of his own commissioners — Corporation Counsel Jim Johnson and Department of Investigation Commissioner Margaret Garnett — to investigate the police response. (Gersh Kuntzman for Streetsblog)
Two Brooklyn residents and a Greene County resident were charged in connection with the use of Molotov cocktails in an attempt to destroy NYPD vehicles during city-wide protests early Saturday morning. (Joe Pantorno for amNewYork Metro)
The mayor edited a statement from the City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, in a fashion that would suggest they took a neutral stance on police violence. Let's be clear, they are not okay with the NYPD's unnecessary reaction to this weekend's protests. Read their full statement and their reaction to our cowardly mayor's placation of the NYPD. (Gersh Kuntzman for Streetsblog)
The state is ready to repeal a law known as 50-a, which protests police personnel records from public view. The state's legislature has Governor Cuomo's support to repeal the law. To quote Assemblymember Danny O'Donnell from Manhattan, "the pendulum swings both ways." (Josefa Velasquez for The City)
Chiara de Blasio, the mayor's daughter, was arrested Saturday night in Union Square amid protests. (NY1)
A palate cleanser: Video of the two baby guars that were born at the Bronx Zoo during the Covid-19 pandemic. We almost got through a full email without a mention of Covid-19. (Emily Davenport for Bronx Times)