Anarchy as mobs plunder M'hattan
Hundreds of looters stormed Manhattan for a second night in a row on Monday, smashing the windows of high-end stores and making off with stolen goods as police attempted to control the chaos.
The roving gangs began their rampage following a demonstration earlier in the evening over George Floyd’s death, at times clashing with peaceful protesters who attempted to stop the looting and destruction.
“It’s systemic — one person breaks the glass with something, someone else comes up on a bike and robs the store,” a witness said. “It’s systemic, you can see.”
In advance of an 11 p.m. citywide curfew that was announced Monday, looters breached a Best Buy, aNike Flatiron, Aldo, Microsoft, Michael Kors and the Nintendo store in Rockefeller Center. Some of the violence continued after the curfew.
Young men could be seen carrying crowbars as they tore into plywood covering store windows and bashed their way inside.
Police descended on the Microsoft store on Fifth Avenue near East 53rd Street at p.m. to detain looters fleeing with expensive goods.
“Get that money,” one man on an electric scooter shouted as looters ransacked the store before three cops arrived from a rear entrance.
A high-ranking police source told The Post that the looting and destruction appeared to be perpetrated by gangs from across the city.
“It’s coordinated,” the source said. “They are not out-of-towners. We know who they are.”
A similar scene took place at around 9:30 p.m. at the Sephora on Fifth Avenue and 19th Street, where three looters stepped into the busted-up cosmetics shop unaware that police officers were already inside.
One of the young men sneaked away after catching sight of the cops, while another darted out of the shop and fell face first on the glassstrewn ground.
Amid the chaos, three Post photographers were assaulted by the looters, two in Midtown and one in Chelsea. And a Post reporter was hit by a piece of barricade hurled outside the Microsoft store.
Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio imposed the curfew in an attempt to claw back control of the city. On Monday night, the mayor extended the curfew to Tuesday, when it will start three hours earlier, at 8 p.m. “You’ve made your point,” de Blasio said during a City Hall press briefing before the announcement of Monday night’s curfew. “It’s time to stay home.”
Such a curfew hasn’t been imposed on the city since 1943, when Mayor Fiorello La Guardia ordered Harlem shut down after a white cop shot and wounded a black GI.
The NYPD deployed some 8,000 cops around the city — double the 4,000 in action on Sunday night, which saw peaceful protests over
Floyd’s fatal May 25 arrest in Minneapolis devolve into looting and clashes between protesters and police, particularly in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan.
Well over 300 demonstrators were arrested and nearly 100 businesses looted in Soho alone as late Sunday bled into early Monday, police sources said.
“We could’ve easily doubled that amount,” one police source who was on the ground said, referring to the arrest total. “These people were not protesting, they were looting.
“We’re so lucky that whole buildings and blocks did not burn down. It is a tinderbox down there.”
Another source said, “It looks deserted. There’s broken glass, s- -t on fire.”
Multiple cops described the normally posh area as reduced to a “war zone.”
“Is there anything left?” one rioter asked his pals before ducking through a broken window into the Wooster Street clothing store Celine at around 6:45 a.m. Monday, with an empty backpack in hand.
He emerged several minutes later, backpack now apparently full, and fled with his buddies.
Other area stores — including Coach, Chanel and Nike outposts — were also hit, and a police source estimated that there were “tens of millions of dollars in damages.”
The curfew was meant to help cap the outbursts of lawlessness in city, but NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea earlier expressed some doubt at how effective such a measure would be.
“The problem is, people need to listen to a curfew, and that’s not going to happen, first and foremost,” Shea told NBC’s “Today” show before the curfew was announced. “If people think it will, they don’t understand what’s going on.”