An NYPD curfew crackdown on protesters in the Bronx in June violated “international human rights” and was maybe the department’s “most aggressive and abusive responses” to demonstrations in response to the death of George Floyd, according to a new report from the Human Rights Watch.
NYPD officers in the Bronx closed in more than 300 protesters using a technique known as “kettling” until the 8 p.m. ET curfew came and went June 4. After the curfew expired, the police began “whaling their batons, beating people from car tops, shoving them down to the ground, and firing pepper spray in their faces,” according to the Human Rights Watch report.
The aggressive police breakup happened 10 minutes after curfew, which was put in place only days before the protests that hit the city after George Floyd’s death.
“The New York City police blocked people from leaving before the curfew and then used the curfew as an excuse to beat, abuse, and arrest people who were protesting peacefully,” said Ida Sawyer, acting crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch, who also co-authored the report.
“It was a planned operation with no justification that could cost New York taxpayers millions of dollars.”
“We take strong exception to the subjective characterization of our police actions to maintain public order as ‘a planned assault,'” an NYPD spokeswoman said of the report, according to the New York Post.
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