Rough Arrests ‘Violate the Spirit’ of NYPD Commitment to Reform Protest Policing, Critics Charge

Leaders of the NYPD sought to justify what appeared to be a heavy-handed crackdown by a controversial unit on pro-Palestinian protesters in Bay Ridge on Saturday amid mounting scrutiny about the department’s commitment to a federal settlement last year meant to protect demonstrators’ First Amendment rights and limit police violence.

Video shared on social media showed police punching, shoving and roughly engaging with the demonstrators.

As part of the settlement, which went into effect in February and stemmed from the NYPD’s aggressive treatment of George Floyd protesters in 2020, the NYPD committed to working out new rules for accommodating demonstrations “whenever possible.”

In its first phase, which was delayed for five months by an unsuccessful legal challenge by the Police Benevolent Association, the NYPD is supposed to be updating its policies and procedures for policing protests, which would then be reviewed by legal advocates and union representatives before going into effect.

“The point of the agreement is to basically de-escalate and scale back an overly aggressive and disproportionate response to peaceful protest,” said Jennvine Wong, a supervising attorney at the Cop Accountability Project of the Legal Aid Society, which is a party in the settlement alongside the New York Civil Liberties Union and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

While the police are still drafting their new rules of engagement, Wong continued, “that doesn’t mean that they can just violate the spirit of the agreement,” she said.

NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman noted that the groups’ monitors witnessed violent arrests, injuries and arrests of credentialed members of the press on Saturday.

“The aggressive escalation by the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group yesterday in Bay Ridge was a violation of New Yorkers’ right to speak out and risks chilling political expression,” she said. Under the new settlement, the Strategic Response Group — the controversial counterterrorism unit behind many of the violent crackdowns on Black Lives Matter demonstrators in 2020, is supposed to take a back seat to policing demonstrations.

“The continual pattern of NYPD aggression against pro-Palestine demonstrators raises important questions about the city’s disparate treatment of speakers based on their message.”

Speaking on 1010 WINS radio Monday morning, Mayor Eric Adams said he would review a video showing a supervising officer in a white shirt repeatedly punching a demonstrator, but overall he commended the police for their work under what he called “very difficult circumstances.”

Kayla Mamelak, a spokesperson for Adams, said the city is working on developing new policies and procedures in accordance with the requirements of the Payne settlement it agreed to following the Floyd protests.

“New York City is committed to honoring the obligations of the settlement,” she said, noting that allegations of excessive force will be reviewed. “Any suggestion otherwise is simply untrue.”

Asked to comment on the Payne settlement and the events of Saturday, a spokesperson for the NYPD pointed to a statement on X :

“The NYPD will ensure everyone’s safety during peaceful protests. We will never tolerate any unlawful, illegal, and non-peaceful protests. NYC residents demand peace and reject unlawful behavior in any form. We will not accept the narrative that persons arrested were victims.”

Two people were arrested for assault and resisting arrest charges on Saturday, while 15 were issued desk appearance tickets for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct and another 24 were written summonses for disorderly conduct, according to an NYPD spokesperson.

A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s office said it was aware of Saturday’s events, and declined any further comment.

‘Nothing Compared to What They’ve Done’

For nearly a decade, organizers with the group Within Our Lifetimes have led Nakba Day protests in Bay Ridge, home to a significant Palestinian-American population, commemorating the day in 1948 when tens of thousands of Palestininans fled their homes following Israel’s creation.

This year’s demonstration had new urgency, they said, amid the seven-month long Israeli offensive in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack — and it also received a police response unlike any previous demonstration.

Video from independent journalist Katie Smith showed one officer repeatedly punching a demonstrator while he recoiled from the blows. Other videos showed officers tackling , dragging and shoving demonstrators, grabbing people seemingly at random and slamming some of them to the ground.

Amid mounting criticism, the NYPD on Sunday evening released an edited nearly two-minute video showing water bottles thrown by protesters towards police, demonstrators using flares, and a Department of Correction bus — there to transport arrested people from the scene — that someone had written a slur on the side of with a Sharpie. In a tweet, the NYPD cited people spitting and throwing water on officers, using a bullhorn without a permit, as additional justification for making 41 arrests .

“Does this look like a peaceful protest to you?” the video concludes, while showing a photo of a demonstrator waving a Hamas flag .

NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry had previously said online that the demonstrators had been “unlawfully blocking roadways,” adding that “one individual even climbed atop an @MTA bus.”

Nerdeen Kiswani, an organizer for Within Our Lifetime, said the crowd had been blocked from entering the roadway by police and rallied on the sidewalk for around two hours before they started marching in the street. The NYPD then started making arrests almost immediately, she said.

“They were doing everything to instigate clashes between them and we were doing everything to get our community away from them at every single turn,” she said. “They were just like predators running after us, hunting us.”

The graffiti and water bottle throwing came in response to the NYPD’s use of force on demonstrators, she said.

“It wouldn’t have happened if they didn’t start it,” she said. “And it’s still nothing compared to what they’ve done.”

‘Whenever Possible Accommodate the Demonstration’

Wong, of the Legal Aid Society, said the NYPD’s actions on Saturday, and its increasingly aggressive approach to policing pro-Palestinian protests over recent months, could lead to a “whole tranche of lawsuits that could be coming down the pipeline and would indicate that they haven’t learned their lesson from the 2020 protests.”

Those settlements have cost New York City taxpayers upwards of $32 million in legal settlements with demonstrators and others who were shoved, punched, pepper-sprayed and beaten with batons as police frequently used barricades and their own bikes to trap groups of people.

The AG’s settlement established a new protest-response protocol that’s supposed to be led by NYPD community affairs officers, with other types of officers coming in only if demonstrators try to access an unauthorized location or sensitive building like a hospital, or if officials deem there’s an imminent threat that crimes like burglary, larceny or assault may occur.

“The NYPD shall whenever possible accommodate the demonstration,” the settlement reads. “These officers shall not be drawn from SRG and shall not carry equipment associated exclusively with those units such as flex-cuffs” that are used for making mass arrests.

The NYPD is supposed to designate a First Amendment Activity Senior Executive, who decides whether a demonstration has escalated in a way that merits a response that goes beyond community affairs officers. A spokesperson for the NYPD didn’t respond to a request for comment from THE CITY about whether that executive has been designated.

After a relatively hands-off police presence last fall, pro-Palestinian demonstrators and reporters have noted a heavier-handed NYPD response in recent months, with more than 600 demonstrators arrested since mid-April amid weeks of demonstrations on college campuses.

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