New York City’ s mayor and cops commissioner on Sunday both protected local officers engaged in violent standoffs with protesters as mass demonstrations appeared throughout the U.S., triggered by the death of Black man George Floyd while in Minneapolis cops custody.
Videos and images flowed on social media Saturday afternoon revealing New york city Police Department officers driving vans into crowds, confronting credentialed media– and detaining a HuffPost reporter– and, in one instance, apparently pulling down a protester’s mask to pepper spray him as the demonstrations progressed into the night.
Referring to officers driving into crowds, de Blasio said on Saturday he believed the incident could have been avoided ” if those protesters had simply gotten out of the method and not developed an effort to surround that car.”
De Blasio likewise revealed in a news instruction on Sunday that 2 local private investigators– Department of Examination head Margaret Garnett and Corporation Counsel James Johnson– will perform an independent review in June of the NYPD’s actions throughout the weekend’s protests.
” The whole concept of having an independent review is to l