Elmont man among 29 arrested in MLK protests;  NYPD Commish says 11 officers hurt

Twenty-nine people were arrested, including an Elmont man, and 11 NYPD officers were hurt during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day demonstration near City Hall, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Tuesday morning.

The proximity to City Hall, and the rioting Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol, were "obviously a concern" to the NYPD making the arrests, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

"We’ll certainly get an accounting to folks, again, emphasizing the proximity to the seat of government was a concern, especially after the recent events of the Capitol," de Blasio said.

Video clips posted to Twitter show protesters outnumbered by cops, some with batons, who yanked protesters who appeared to be in the roadway, or on barricades, as a recorded warning plays to get onto the sidewalk.

According to an NYPD statement, the arrests began after "a female using an iPhone to record" the protesters near the Municipal Building, at 1 Centre St., diagonal from City Hall, and some protesters began to "move in to harass her … Officers who formed a circle to protect and remove her then had glass bottles thrown at them."

The statement said 12 men and 17 women were arrested, ranging in age from 20 to 41. All are New Yorkers except one from New Jersey and another from Rhode Island; one of the arrests was voided. The Elmont man is 28.

Twenty-one people were issued summonses for disorderly conduct and 7 given desk appearance tickets — 3 for obstructing governmental administration, 1 for misdemeanor assault and 3 for resisting arrest, the NYPD said.

Speaking on 1010 WINS, Shea said the injured officers included a captain who was hit in the helmet with a bottle. Some officers were treated and released, while others were taken to hospitals, he said.

Shea said the demonstration, which began in Brooklyn, was "one of several" organized Monday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

On NY1, Shea said that during the protest buildings were defaced with graffiti and protesters were throwing bottles at officers when they moved in to control and disperse the crowd.

Shea blamed these incidents on a small group of instigators among the otherwise peaceful marchers who had crossed the Brooklyn Bridge from Brooklyn into Manhattan.

"Whatever it is this was, it was not a peaceful protest," Shea said later. He added: "A march to honor Martin Luther King. That's exactly what this wasn't."

Speaking before heading to the hospital for an MRI to check out injuries he says he sustained when tackled by police officers, the Elmont man, Jonathan Peck, said he was on Centre Street near Chambers Street relaying the names to organizers of protesters being arrested nearby when he was arrested himself.

To the extent he was resisting, he said, it was because he was writhing and trying to maneuver himself into a less painful position during the detention.

"I don’t want to say we didn't resist. At the same point, there were at least 5 to 6 bodies on top of me, twice my size, screaming in my ear ‘just stop resisting,’" he said, after being released on a disorderly conduct summons.

Peck, a computer technician and actor, said for months the police had let protesters march in the street, including earlier that evening, and the group thought they'd be allowed to do so again.

The arrest was his fifth or sixth in protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Monday's protest, he said, was a solidarity march "in memory of MLK’s name as well as all the other Black lives and Black trans lives that were either taken or lost within the last year — and all of American history."

The NYPD has been criticized by state Attorney General Letitia James, who sued the department over its handling of protests last summer after Floyd's death. In that suit, James seeks an NYPD overseer.

Criticism has come from three government watchdogs, including James, who have faulted the NYPD for the Floyd-protest response. De Blasio said he agreed with those watchdogs' reports, and he has apologized.

During the Floyd protests, a Newsday reporter witnessed some vandalism and defiance of NYPD orders by protesters, but also police officers making what appeared to be indiscriminate arrests in some cases, using batons, bikes and pepper spray.

On Tuesday, de Blasio promised that the NYPD would release information providing the legal and factual basis for each arrest Monday night, along with explaining how policing that night had changed since those watchdogs' critical findings.

As of Tuesday night, the NYPD had provided only a list of charges and names.

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com,matthew.chayes@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”