NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio sought to defend both protesters and police and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signaled support for a long sought criminal justice reform after a spate of violent clashes in New York City Friday night, as the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer has drawn thousands to the streets in cities across the U.
S.Images of police vehicles set ablaze and officers attacking protesters in Brooklyn spread across social media throughout the night and early morning amid a chaotic protest that left hundreds of protesters and cops injured and hospitalized, officials said. De Blasio laid some blame for the national protests at the feet of President Donald Trump.
“There’s been an uptick in tension and hatred and division since [Trump] came along,” the mayor said in response to a reporter’s question Saturday. “It’s just a fact.”
But he spent much of his Saturday press briefing defending police and protesters while calling out aggression on both sides of the protests.
“Last night was a difficult, complex situation,” de Blasio said. “It’s our obligation as a city government, it’s the NYPD’s obligation, to find the best possible way to keep peace — to protect everyone, to avoid anything that allows further violence to occur. But that means also recognizing that any aggressive act toward a peaceful protester sends exactly the wrong message.”
Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died this week after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyd’s final words, “I can’t breathe,” stoked particular outrage in New York, echoing the final words of Eric Garner who died after being put in an illegal chokehold by an NYPD officer in 2014.
De Blasio said he will conduct an independent review of the police’s response to the protests, with more details to come over the weekend. Cuomo said he asked Attorney General Tish James — who represented an area of Brooklyn in the City Council that saw some of Friday’s worst violence — to conduct an investigation of the police response.
“There’ll be people who criticize the police, there will be people who criticize the protesters,” the governor said. “That’s why I think the smart way forward is let’s get an independent review, let’s figure out what happened.”
Cuomo also delivered the most direct promise he’s made thus far on reforming a contentious police disclosure law, known as 50-a, that criminal justice advocates say shields police from releasing officers’ disciplinary records. The issue erupted after Garner’s death when elected officials and advocates demanded the records of former Officer Daniel Pantaleo, whose chokehold of Garner led to the Staten Island man’s death — a push the de Blasio administration fought, citing the state law.
In the past, Cuomo’s references have mostly been about how the law isn’t as binding as people like de Blasio say it is, and their references to it are simply excuses to avoid tough decisions. He repeated that argument on Saturday.
“I do not believe 50-a as an existing law prohibits the disclosure,” he said. “I have done counsel’s opinions that say that. I think local elected officials across the state could release disciplinary records even with the existing 50-a law if they wanted to. I think they don’t want to, so they say ‘I can’t.’”
De Blasio spokesperson Freddi Goldstein said the governor’s comments were confusing.
"If he doesn’t believe it prohibits disclosure, then why does he need to reform it?" Goldstein said. "The mayor said yesterday the law should be repealed and replaced."
That push is likely to gain new urgency in the wake of Friday night’s chaos.
Officers pepper-sprayed demonstrators, including state Assemblymember Diana Richardson and state Senator Zellnor Myrie. Videos captured police responding aggressively to the protests, including one moving police vehicle opening a passenger door and striking a protester and another officer forcefully shoving one woman to the ground.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said some protesters arrived with brass knuckles, at least one loaded firearm and Molotov cocktails, one of which was thrown at a parked police van with four officers inside. The police department made 200 arrests.
“We fully remain committed to supporting the right to publicly assemble, to protest, to free speech,” Shea said at the press conference. “But at the same time we will have zero tolerance for individuals looking to cause harm to anyone.”
De Blasio, who campaigned for mayor in part on a message of police reform, has defended police actions throughout his tenure as mayor. On Saturday he chastised officers who were overly aggressive and criticized a culture of racism that permeates through the law enforcement community nationally.
“There’s a poison of structural racism,” de Blasio said. “It haunts the lives of people of color everyday in this country in this city.”
He said Trump has fanned the flames of that discord since taking office.
“The President of the United States helped to create this atmosphere, and that’s the tragedy here,” the mayor said.
But as mayor, de Blasio’s record on police reform has fallen short of the hopes of criminal justice advocates.
In 2013 he ran on a platform of stop-and-frisk, which a federal judge ruled unconstitutionally targeted black and Latino men. But he has faced criticism for repeatedly refusing to state whether the officers involved in Garner's death should be fired, instead blaming the U.S. Department of Justice for dragging its feet on investigating the incident.
Pantaleo remained on the force under modified duty for years, even collecting overtime, before he was ultimately fired in 2019.
Elected officials widely panned the police department’s handling of the Friday protests.
“We cannot have the heavy police presence that we saw at the outset before anyone was outside,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams during a separate Saturday press conference. “There was a wall of police that were here … it is an imposing position to be in. We are dealing with people who are grieving and who are angry. The response to that cannot be a show of force.”
Mayoral candidates also condemned the police for not keeping the peace.
“The NYPD should be easing tensions, not pepper spraying state legislators and shoving peaceful protestors.”
“Last night was a complete and total failure of leadership,” Comptroller Scott Stringer tweeted.
Eric Adams, a former NYPD officer and the only black man currently running for mayor in 2021, did not defend the police in a statement issued Saturday, instead decrying the years “we've watched countless Black people across this country fall victim to police abuse.”
“The protests that took place last night are yet another manifestation of that raw anger, he added. “The open wound of racism cannot be ignored.”
Sally Goldenberg contributed reporting.
