[CONTENT NOTE: police violence against peaceful protesters, lying police liars who lie.]
A new report from Human Rights Watch documents the NYPD’s brutal assaults against peaceful George Floyd protesters at a June 4 rally in the Bronx (via New York Daily News):
NYPD trapped over 300 George Floyd protesters in the Bronx and waited until after curfew to ‘assault and arrest’ them: report
The NYPD trapped over 300 protesters in the Bronx marching for George Floyd and waited until the 8 p.m. citywide curfew to arrest them for breaking the law, a human rights group wrote in a scathing report released Wednesday.
Human Rights Watch said Bronx cops surrounded protesters on June 4 in a tactic known as kettling, refused to let them disperse, then began “whaling their batons, beating people from car tops, shoving them down to the ground and firing pepper spray in their faces” as soon as the curfew hit.
The 8 p.m. shutdown was imposed a few days earlier to stem widespread looting amid marches against the death of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis police custody.
“As protesters cried out — some with blood dripping down their faces — the police began to arrest them. They forced people to sit on the street with their hands zip-tied behind their backs, at times so tight that their hands went numb,” said Human Rights Watch in their report.
[Human Rights Watch] said they questioned 81 protesters and reviewed 81 videos and police scanner calls for the report. They also released a 12-minute video filled with diagrams of the Mott Haven clash, interviews with witnesses and protesters, and cellphone videos taken at the scene.
Here is video from Human Rights Watch detailing the sequence of events on June 4.
CONTENT NOTE (from the filmmakers):
“This video contains violent and disturbing images and profanity. Viewer discretion is advised.”
“We were there to protest police brutality and ironically became victims of police violence,” said protester Andom Ghebreghiorgis in a Wednesday press conference.
Yeah I don’t think police get irony. Conservatives rarely ever do.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea and Mayor Bill de Blasio defended the NYPD’s plan a day after the 312 arrests, with Shea saying it was “executed nearly flawlessly” with Chief of Department Terence Monahan at the helm.
Good job, everyone. WELL DONE.
NYC Mayor de Blasio, for those who may not be aware, is a radical leftist and/or anarchist, according to Trump & Co. Mayor de Blasio is a socialist, according to Mayor de Blasio. Mayor de Blasio is an ordinary corrupt capitalist, according to Iris Vander Pluym. Like virtually everyone else at the highest levels of city government, he is owned by the real estate developers. I mean, what the hell kind of socialist privatizes public housing? Sells public housing air rights to his political donors? The correct answer to that non-rhetorical question is: NONE. An ordinary corrupt capitalist owned by the real estate developers, on the other hand…
[Police Commissioner] Shea claimed that the same people who organized the Mott Haven rally were behind violent protests earlier in the year, and cops recovered weapons, guns and gasoline at the scene.
But cops later admitted that no gasoline was ever found, and the gun [arrest] happened three hours before the protest, about half a mile away.
This quote springs to mind:
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
–Joseph Goebbels
(In a time of actual Nazis and white supremacist presidents, is it even possible to Godwin yourself anymore? Asking for a friend.)
In response to the Human Rights Watch report, the NYPD said it was reviewing its tactics.
“The NYPD has conducted an ongoing review of the department’s response to protests and riots,” the NYPD said in a statement. “Enhanced training and techniques have already been put in place.”
Phew! Now that’s very reassuring. Just move along now, nothing to see here, people!
Unless of course you bother to watch that video, knowing that the NYPD’s actions on June 4 in Mott Haven were planned.
NYPD trapped over 300 George Floyd protesters in the Bronx and waited until after curfew to ‘assault and arrest’ them: report
It’s past time for some people with high powered rifles to mousetrap a bunch of cops and make them fucking disappear vietminh-style.
No no no, Marcus! If people trap cops to assault them, it’s morally reprehensible and subject to the most severe criminal sanctions. If cops trap other people to assault them, it’s PERFECTLY FINE. Perhaps the greatest philosopher of our time, Rudy Giuliani, can clarify this point of moral reasoning. When asked in 2007 whether the practice of waterboarding constituted torture, he responded, “It depends on who does it.” See?
And Marcus the any who defended themselves while being beaten would get far worse as the coward cops ganged up on the individuals. The cops can’t loose as they have the tanks, 50cal machine guns and flame throwers! Aint militarization awesome!
According to Mike Godwin himself, “If you’re thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler when you talk about Trump, or any other politician.” (He never agreed with the corollary that making the comparison to Nazis automatically lost you the argument, just if you used it with no sense of scale. Which, granted, most people were doing when he coined the law in 1990. The scale has rather more publicly caught up since then.)