CCG – A police official stated on Sunday that the NYPD is “looking into” the footage of a supervisor repeatedly hitting a protestor during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
At the demonstration led by the advocacy group Within Our Lifetime, which describes itself as “against the entirety of the zionist settler-colonial project,” police made 41 arrests on Saturday afternoon.
Nakba Day, commemorating the day in 1948 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were uprooted in the wake of Israel’s proclamation of independence, fell on the same day as the protest. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been happening all across the city ever since Israel invaded Gaza in reaction to Hamas militants’ attack on Israel on October 7.
An independent reporter posted the videos on X, where they depict police removing protesters from the area of Bay Ridge Avenue and Fifth Avenue. Subsequently, a protester is shown being grabbed and forced to the ground by a cop wearing a white shirt, which indicates that he is a supervisor with the NYPD. Then, the cop gives him at least three punches to the face.
The reason the protester was picked out was not made clear by the video. The demonstrator was captured on camera in handcuffs, bleeding profusely from the head.
A police representative said that the department was “looking into” the recordings but declined to comment further.
On X, formerly Twitter, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry revealed that protestors were taken into custody after they forcibly obstructed local roads. In his article, Daughtry provided footage taken from a drone that showed a sizable gathering of people impeding traffic with Palestinian flags flying. A protester was ensnared in the crowd and perched atop an MTA bus.
Nerdeen Kiswani, a co-founder of Within Our Lifetime, claimed to have witnessed police brutality against several protestors.
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According to 29-year-old KiswaniIt”it just seemed like from the beginning they were itching to grab us and hurt us in any way.” “They arrived prepared to fight.”
As part of a settlement to resolve legal action launched by participants in the 2020 Black Lives Matter rallies, the NYPD committed to modify its response to protests in March. The changes included new policies aimed at preventing needless use of force and updated training for law enforcement personnel.
The largest Palestinian community in the city is located in Bay Ridge. The neighborhood’s council member, Justin Brannan, claimed in a statement that he observed “no evidence of actions by protestors yesterday that warranted such an aggressive response from NYPD” and that the Nakba Day event this year was “much smaller than years past.”
These were not the local police. It’s obvious that issued a “zero tolerance” directive, which intensified the situation and made it worse, according to Brannan. “I am currently awaiting further information and specifics regarding the made arrests; however, it seems that the response was preemptive, retaliatory, and overly aggressive all at once.”
