For 2nd day, witnesses testify on alleged NYPD brutality at Floyd protests

The NYPD routinely surrounded and trapped George Floyd protesters and bystanders, in a controversial practice known as “kettling” — even while issuing dispersal orders — witnesses testified Thursday.

Appearing by video at a proceeding convened by state Attorney General Letitia James, the witnesses recalled protests, nearly all peaceful, in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx at which baton-wielding riot cops suddenly showed up and boxed in protesters, and anyone who happened to be nearby. Sometimes, the witnesses said, the cops struck with the batons, used tactics such as tackling and shoving, and made mass arrests, or a combination.

“It’s unfair, because you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. You’re gonna lose either way. If you want to go home, you’re gonna get arrested. If you stay, you’re gonna get arrested," said Paulina Ramos, who testified she  saw cops near Battery Park tackling and beating protesters early in June, and later the same night was kettled with about 1,000 protesters on the Manhattan Bridge.

Thursday was the second day James presided over the hearing — virtually, due to the coronavirus emergency — to examine how the police handled the protests. Originally scheduled only for Wednesday, she said she added a day because “so many people wanted to tell their stories.”

James said her office has also received hundreds of submissions, including cellphone camera footage. The NYPD has provided documents, too. 

She said Thursday that the NYPD and the mayor’s office were each invited within the past 10 or so days to participate and hadn't accepted. 

The protests came in response to the bystander-recorded Floyd's death on May 25 in Minneapolis. Floyd was handcuffed while shown for nearly nine minutes under the knee of a cop arresting him, allegedly for trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. Furor spread: mostly protests but also rioting, looting and other unrest.

At the peak, the NYPD had more than 22,000 cops out on a single day, according to NYPD spokeswoman Devora Kaye. She said that from May 29 to June 15, the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau got 87 complaints involving 51 incidents. About 50 of the 87 complaints came from within the NYPD, including when a civilian pointed out to a cop apparent misconduct. 

Several cops have been disciplined, and one arrested who was seen on bystanders’ video cursing and shoving a nonviolent woman, 20, into a curb.

As of June 8, there were 354 cops who said they were injured, and 132 such protesters, though this is likely an undercount, according to the NYPD, which tallied roughly 2,500 arrests and summonses. 

At the hearings, James questioned witnesses, as did two advisers: former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and NYU law professor and policing expert, Barry Friedman.  

While patrolling the unrest, only some cops wore face coverings — required, where feasible, by NYPD rules to contain coronavirus — even when stationary and in confined, indoor spaces, according to testimony. Also: cops singled out, attacked and arrested cyclists, including those not riding, without police warning or identifying themselves — which was also witnessed repeatedly by a reporter covering the protests.

Early in the unrest, some people in the crowds hurled projectiles or attacked police property, though these appeared to constitute the minority of protests.

NYPD Sgt. Angel Ramos representing the National Latino Officers Association testified in defense of the way some fellow cops handled the unrest, including in Brooklyn on May 30 when shown in a viral video briefly advancing an NYPD SUV forward into a crowd who were blocking the vehicle with a barricade they had picked up, while others nearby hurled projectiles.

“It’s hard. Because you can’t get out. You have nobody else there. You try to back up, you probably hit somebody,” he said. “And they went forward. They went forward at a safe rate of speed.”

 Alissa McKendrick, one of Thursday's first witnesses, recalled trying to leave a protest June 3 near Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza, but the cops closed in — on one side using shields to push protesters in one direction while cops in riot gear wielding batons ran at the protesters from the other.

“I was hit with a baton in my ribs and pushed three or four times with force,” she testified, adding: “It was hard to walk away as quickly as officers wanted us to because of the crowd and also because there were many people on the ground, many people who were pushed to the ground.” 

Even when there was a dispersal warning, the witnesses testified, there was no feasible way to comply, including during the city's curfew imposed June 1 until June 7. (Mayor Bill de Blasio's executive order — and a directive issued by the NYPD — required that dispersal orders be given, and a chance to do so, before an arrest.)

Recalling a protest in the Bronx on June 4, Kyla Savino said there was a recorded dispersal order about 10 minutes before the curfew began, “but we were completely kettled in so there was no way for us to leave.”

“At that time, we all started chanting, ‘Let us go,' like, let us be free, let us disperse. But they didn’t allow us, and at 8 p.m. they started crushing us in on both sides and beating people with batons, using pepper spray,” said Savino, who sustained a black eye when she was slammed to the ground and arrested.

Commissioner Dermot Shea had initially said that the police moved to close down that protest because there was evidence that criminality was afoot — although witnesses later disputed that assertion, according to news accounts, saying that peaceful protesters weren't near that activity, and noted that legal observers also were arrested.

Savino, under questioning Thursday by Friedman, said she was asked “pretty useless questions” by the police: “'Are you gonna do this again? Did you learn your lesson?' To which I ignored them.” 

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.