Mayor, chief offer views of protest through video
Hawkins: There were extremely violent behaviors displayed
Police Chief Eric Hawkins on Friday shared officers’ bodycamera footage from this week’s Black Lives Matter protest, showing clips that provided more insight into how police wound up deploying pepper spray and how a window was broken by some protesters — actions that have come amid rising tensions in the wake of recent police killings of Black people across the country.
In a press conference also attended by Mayor Kathy Sheehan, both city officials sounded agitated as they played clips obtained by officers at the scene and by security cameras situated at the South Station building, and discussed the protest.
“It was only after the protesters were banging on the doors, trying to get in, breaking a window, all of that done by protesters, not by police, by protesters
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It was only after the protesters were banging on the doors, trying to get in, breaking a window, all of that done by protesters, not by police, by protesters.”
Mayor Kathy Sheehan
— in a scene that was eerily familiar to us and reminded me of what we saw at the Capitol on Jan. 6,” Sheehan said of Wednesday’s protests, comparing the breaking of a window and banging of the South Station’s doors to January’s storming of the United States Capitol, in which five people died, including a Capitol Police officer.
The new footage shows at least two protesters banging the door with their feet, and one police officer saying, “The guy with the black hoodie just broke the window.” That man with the black hoodie was a white protester. An officer in the video also says the window was broken with a bottle.
The footage shows three protesters shouting racial slurs at the Black police officers guarding the entrance at separate moments throughout the demonstration.
A vast majority of the protesters were shouting chants associated with anti-racist protests and demonstrations, such as, “No justice, no peace,” and, “This is what democracy looks like.”
Police were originally outside South Station on the entrance ramp leading to the doors as protesters concluded their march, which began at Townsend Park. The march across the city was peaceful, with 18 police officers stopping traffic, according to Hawkins, as protesters knelt on cross streets, raising their fists and shouting “Black Lives Matter.”
When the protesters first arrived at the South Station, most were yelling chants and shouting at the officers. Around a dozen protesters were standing close to the railing, footage showed. One demonstrator
shined a bright light at the officers’ faces. Hawkins said the light “can cause damage to our officers.”
Then officers went back inside and chained the entrance door with a pair of handcuffs. Hawkins said they went back inside in order to ease tensions.
But after the window was broken by the protester wearing a hoodie and sunglasses, an officer can be heard saying, “We’re taking it outside. I can’t deal with that.”
Before officers stepped back outside, one is heard saying in body-camera footage: “We’re not going to escalate this.”
As the officers step outside, the protesters can be seen standing on the ramp that leads to the building’s entrance, and there is no immediate shoving or clash; one man is seen with his arms crossed, others can be
seen shouting as they lean against the railing. No protester can be seen in the footage physically attacking or confronting an officer. Many were yelling at the officers, and one woman can be seen doing so through a megaphone.
Officers are heard telling people to clear the ramp.
Body-camera footage from the commander at the scene shows him reaching for the woman’s megaphone and snagging it, causing the woman to fall on the ground.
Hawkins paused the video after this moment was shown at the press conference and said that at that point during the protest, “the station was under siege,” and there were “extremely violent behaviors” being displayed. But footage doesn’t show aggressive shoving or any physical altercation
initiated by the protesters when officers walked back outside. The window was already broken before officers walked back out.
“There is an imminent threat to our station, imminent threat to police officers. In order to minimize those threats, we have to deal with the distractions,” Hawkins said, citing the high-powered light and megaphone as examples of such distractions. “Officers have to reclaim this space. And they have to address the threats as they are reclaiming this space.”
Numerous protesters at the scene told the Times Union that protesting is inherently about being loud and that officers had no right to take a megaphone away from a woman who was protesting, injuring her in the process.
Footage taken by the Times
Union shows that after the officer grabbed the woman’s megaphone, another protester climbed over the railing that surrounds the ramp leading to the station’s entrance, and an officer pepper-sprayed him in the face, while at least two other officers began to push other protesters away from the entrance, sending them to the ground. A 14-year-old girl was among those injured by the pepper spray.
More pepper spray was again deployed as some protesters approached the entrance.
“No more pepper,” an officer can be heard yelling in bodycamera footage.
Sheehan said she was unhappy with news organizations’ coverage of the protests at the South Station, saying news outlets left out key details, such as the breaking of the window. Numerous news outlets, including the Times Union, reported that damage had been done to the building.
Sheehan said on Thursday that she had not seen the video of the confrontation between police and protesters, but on Friday, she said: “I have now seen the video; I understand why our officers acted the way that they acted. I commend them for the constraint that they showed.”
“This is a department that is trained and that has my complete confidence,” Sheehan said.