NYPD mobilizing for Chauvin verdict demonstrations, Shea says
/
A PROTESTER WAS ARRESTED ON FIFTH AVENUE BY NYPD OFFICERS DURING A MARCH ON JUNE 4, 2020. PHOTO BY JOHN MINCHILLO/AP
By David Brand
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea says police are gearing up for protests after a verdict in the trial of a Minneapolis cop charged with killing George Floyd, concerning critics of the department’s aggressive response to demonstrations following Floyd’s death last year.
A jury trial is underway in the case of Derek Chauvin, the ex-cop who kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, killing him in May 2020. With a verdict sure to spur large-scale demonstrations, Shea said police are preparing for New Yorkers to take to the streets.
“We are going to be mobilizing to have at the ready. We’ve already been drilling a large number of police officers and, again, hopefully they’re not needed and if they are needed hopefully it’s to allow people to come out and protest peacefully,” Shea said during a meeting hosted by Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Monday.
Shea volunteered the remarks without prompting from meeting attendees, including Queens councilmembers and the heads of the borough’s community boards. He said he wants to see “justice served” as Chauvin faces various murder and manslaughter charges and encouraged New Yorkers to demonstrate “calmly.”
“We ask all New Yorkers whatever the outcome of that trial is that if there is a situation where there is going to be protests or things of that nature that we all agree that we just want to do it peacefully with no injuries or property damaging,” he said.
But critics of the NYPD’s protest response say the police bear much of the blame for injuries suffered during demonstrations after Floyd’s killing last year.
“The NYPD must not meet demands for justice with the provocation, aggression, and abuse that was on full display last summer,” said New York Civil Liberties Union Legal Director Chris Dunn. “Commissioner Shea’s ‘hopes’ for peace do not absolve the Department of their responsibility to create safe spaces as New Yorkers gather, mourn and speak out on the compounded traumas of the police killings of George Floyd and Daunte Wright.”
Minnesota resident Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop Sunday. The killing has fueled additional protests against police violence in New York City.
New Yorkers demonstrated every night for more than two weeks following the killing of Floyd in May and June 2020, despite an 8 p.m. curfew established by Mayor de Blasio. That curfew empowered the NYPD to break up demonstrations and arrest protestors en masse, further inflaming the situation, according to analyses of the police response.
A lengthy report from the city’s Department of Investigation determined that NYPD’s response to the “Floyd protests produced excessive enforcement that contributed to heightened tensions.” Mass arrests, shoving, baton-swinging and “kettling,” or corralling demonstrators, made the situation even worse, the DOI found. De Blasio, who commissioned the report, later apologized for the response.
Shea and former Chief of Department Terence Monahan maintained that police responded appropriately following incidents of looting and after gathering intelligence about armed demonstrators. The DOI report also described injuries to officers and extensive damage to police property.
The NYPD did not respond Tuesday to questions about their approach to potential protests following the Chauvin verdict.
State and local lawmakers lambasted the department for their handling of the protests last year.
In January, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the NYPD and sought an independent monitor to “end the pervasive use of excessive force and false arrests by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) against New Yorkers in suppressing overwhelmingly peaceful protests.”
In a response to Shea’s comments Monday, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem Managing Director Alice Fontier referenced one of the most disturbing images from last year’s demonstrations: officers driving a patrol vehicle into a group of demonstrators.
"NYPD officers didn’t run over protestors with SUVs last summer because they had inadequate training,” Fontier said. “They ran over protestors because they are allergic to accountability and violently suppress any popular movement to bring justice.”
Brooklyn Defender Services Senior Policy Counsel Maryanne Kaishian called Shea’s comments “the height of hypocrisy.”
“As public defenders, we witness firsthand the NYPD’s violent response to demonstrations and their aftermath,” Kaishian said. “These demonstrations are not only about the police murders of George Floyd and Daunte Wright in Minnesota, but also about abusive policing at home.”
“Commissioner Shea calls for peaceful and non-disruptive protests while overseeing a Department whose response to demonstrations has been criticized by the United Nations Human Rights Committee and that still employs abusive officers, brutalizes people who criticize the NYPD, and continues to harm more and more people every day,” she added.
