NYPD tears down City Hall Park camp

Formed to force change in police budget, tactics

NEW YORK — Police in riot gear raided an encampment of protesters and homeless people near New York’s City Hall before dawn Wednesday, clearing out the camp that formed a month ago to push for budget cuts and other changes to the nation’s largest police department.

A line of New York Police Department officers with helmets and shields entered City Hall Park shortly before 4 a.m. and forced out what officials said were about 50 people, many of them homeless, who remained at the encampment. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the move was unrelated to President Donald Trump’s threats to send federal law enforcers to New York to take on protesters, as the Republican president has done in Portland, Oregon.

“We do always respect the right to protest, but we have to think about health and safety first, and the health and safety issues were growing,” said de Blasio, a Democrat. “So it was time to take action.”

Speaking later in Albany, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Trump told him by phone that he wouldn’t deploy extra federal law enforcement forces to New York for now, and that the two leaders would speak before any such action happened.

Video from the police raid shows officers moving through the camp, taking down tents and other temporary structures and tossing them into garbage trucks. Cleaning crews arrived later to scrub graffiti from buildings.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said officers instructed people to leave, let them do so and many did, but about six were given summonses for refusing to disperse. One person was arrested for throwing a brick at an officer, denting his shield, Shea said. The commissioner said that no injuries were reported and that there was “no real use of force.”

But some protesters disputed Shea’s account, saying they didn’t hear a warning before police poured in.

“They tried to run us over with bikes,” Nene Thompkins, 19, a woman living at the camp told Gothamist.

De Blasio said shelter services were offered to homeless people at the encampment.

The encampment, sometimes called “Occupy City Hall” or “Abolition Plaza,” started in late June with several hundred people following weeks of protests sparked by the

May death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.