ANTI-COP ANARCHY ON NYC STREETS
Charges against ‘Molotov hurler’ as local ‘Floyd’ protests widen
Anti-cop protests resumed with furious intensity and scattered violence across the Big Apple on Saturday — as an upstate woman was charged with allegedly hurling a Molotov cocktail at four uniformed officers as they sat in their police van in Brooklyn.
The four cops were spared injury — or worse — because the device did not explode, said NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea.
“It is by the grace of God that we don’t have dead officers today,” said the top cop, adding that officers were being targeted regardless of race or gender.
The NYPD initially pressed for attemptedmurder charges against the demonstrator — but federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have taken over the case, and a criminal complaint released early Sunday charges only a single count of causing damage by fire or explosives to a police vehicle.
A spokesperson declined to comment on whether she could face additional charges.
Throughout the day Saturday, thousands protesting the policecustody death of George Floyd on Memorial Day in Minneapolis snarled the FDR Drive and the West Side Highway in Manhattan.
They massed by the thousands at the southern end of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, smashed the windows of a marked NYPD car in Harlem and set a police SUV ablaze in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
The lone officer inside the police vehicle in Harlem was protected from worse violence by more peaceful marchers, who shielded him with their bodies until arriving cops could restore a tenuous afternoon peace.
By nightfall, a massive NYPD mobilization was underway, with all detectives ordered to switch back into uniform — to join officers already on the streets.
By then, demonstrator Samantha Shader, 27, of Catskill, NY, was in federal custody for allegedly throwing a makeshift incendiary device at an NYPD van with four cops inside Friday night at Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue in Brooklyn. An initial court hearing is set for Monday.
Shader (inset above) allegedly bit one cop on the leg as she was taken into custody, cops said.
Her sister, Darian, 21, was also taken into custody after she tried to interfere with the arrest, cops said. She’s charged with resisting arrest and obstruction of governmental administration.
Throughout the day Saturday, crowds of angry protesters converged in Brooklyn, Manhattan and on Staten Island. They graffitied profanities and “BLM” — for “Black Lives Matter” — at the base of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Police cars and wooden barricades were set on fire in Union Square.
As some businesses in Manhattan boarded up their windows, protesters blocked traffic in Times Square and chanted in Union Square — with protesters climbing atop a police cruiser to lead angry chants.
After dark in lower Manhattan, scattered looting broke out, including at about a dozen higher-end retail stores in and around Soho, including Adidas, Urban Outfitter and North Face.
“I’m a size 32,” one looter could be heard shouting while busting into a Nudie Jeans at the Bowery and Spring Street. Protesters massed outside Trump Tower in Midtown, where at least nine people were arrested in the late afternoon for throwing water bottles at cops.
In Brooklyn, they gathered at Barclays Center and Grand Army Plaza.
“F--k the police!” many shouted.
Bedlam broke out in East Flatbush near the 67th Precinct, with an empty, marked NYPD SUV set on fire and out-of-control protesters tossing glass bottles and other objects through a haze of mace.
“Go home!” residents screamed from windows on Rogers Avenue.
The unrest followed more marked violence from the previous night, when protesters assailed New York’s Finest with multiple Molotov cocktails, bricks and brass knuckles in Brooklyn, according to Shea, who said at a Saturday City Hall press conference with Mayor de Blasio that “countless” cops were hurt when the demonstrations devolved into mayhem.
Four protesters in all were awaiting arraignment in Brooklyn federal court Saturday night for allegedly hurling incendiary devices the night before.
Friday night’s violence also included a sergeant punched in the head with brass knuckles in lower Manhattan.
Also Friday night, a loaded firearm was recovered from another Manhattan protester, and several cops got teeth knocked out in confrontations, Shea said.
De Blasio blamed the violence on “a very small number” of people who “literally and specifically meant to incite violence.”
He announced an independent probe to review actions by protesters — and by cops.
“I’ve seen some videos that don’t reflect the values of the NYPD,” the mayor said. “There needs to be accountability.”
Attacks on cops “poisoned the whole atmosphere,” he said.
“That does not for a moment take away from the fact that the NYPD has to do better.”
One troubling video posted to Twitter shows an officer shoving a woman to the ground on Friday near Barclays Center.
That victim, Dounya Zayer, on Saturday urged the weekend’s protesters to “be careful.”
“We cannot see a video like that . . . There will be accountability,” de Blasio said of the Zayer attack.
“There will be accountability also on the side of the protesters, I assure you, but we have to keep people’s faith the NYPD is here to protect them. Period.”
Shea conceded there was no excuse for throwing “a peaceful protester to the ground” but noted “it
is very difficult to practice de-escalation when you’re having a brick thrown at your head.”
On Staten Island Saturday, demonstrators peacefully gathered at the spot where Eric Garner died being restrained by police in 2014.
“I feel the same pain when I heard about Floyd,” said Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr. “I don’t condone violence, but I understand it.”
Gov. Cuomo asked state Attorney General Letitia James to conduct a 30-day probe of the caught-onvideo violence and any other potential police misconduct — and said he will sign into law any measure that would allow the disclosure of officers’ prior disciplinary actions.
“Violence is not the answer. It never is the answer,” Cuomo said. “The violence obscures the righteousness of the message and the mission.”
Critics from inside and outside the NYPD blamed the violence on a lack of mayoral leadership.
“The mayor speaks as if he’s not in charge of the city,” Brooklyn City Councilman Mark Treyger tweeted Saturday. “What is becoming more clear is that not only is he losing control over the police but he’s losing control of the city altogether.”
Police unions were also critical of the mayor, saying his lack of leadership leaves cops in danger.