Protesters on Queens Boulevard (Michael Dorgan, Queens Post)
Dec. 18, 2020 By Allie Griffin
The NYPD used excessive force in responding to the George Floyd protests over the summer and further inflamed tensions with the public, according to a scathing new report.
The NYC Department of Investigation (DOI) released a report Friday detailing the NYPD’s response to the protests that were triggered by the brutal death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man killed by members of the Minneapolis Police Dept.
The report said that police officers failed to de-escalate tensions with protesters and suppressed New Yorkers’ First Amendment rights.
“[The] NYPD’s use of force on protesters — encirclement (commonly called “kettling”), mass arrests, baton and pepper spray use, and other tactics — reflected a failure to calibrate an appropriate balance between valid public safety or officer safety interests and the rights of protesters to assemble and express their views,” the 115-page report states.
DOI also said officers often failed to determine who were “lawful, peaceful protesters and unlawful actors” when using force or making arrests.
The report further states the the NYPD deployed officers who lacked sufficient training on how to police protests and that training established after the protests focused on the same “disorder control methods” without a de-escalation component.
Furthermore, the NYPD failed to utilize its community affairs officers to better connect to protestors and ease tensions. DOI said current protest response training still lacks a community affairs aspect.
The report earned the praise of Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.
“I’m pleased the report confirms that the NYPD’s tactics were unnecessarily aggressive and I agree with its conclusion that the Department needs major structural change in the way it deals with protests,” Richards said.
“The ability to speak out against injustice is a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment, and the NYPD has a duty to safeguard that right,” Richards added.
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As usual, you have the extremes on both sides running the show. On the extreme right, you have the trumpers and police saying the police are never wrong and on the extreme left you have the defund the police, white shame, anarchy crowd.
The BLM movement is a legit one. However instead of zeroing in on police misconduct by a few cops and passing first state and then national legislation when the time is ripe to correct it you had the extremes take over and concentrated on defund the police, white shame and anarchy instead of solving the problem.
Instead of Lincoln and Fred. Douglass ending slavery, we have the Rev. Al and Trump, two idea bankrupt ego maniac demagogues in their place.
The BLM really blew it and hurt the cause for many yrs. to come,