LITTLE RED ‘RIOTING’ HOOD
Upper East Side woman charged with BLM attack
Mom’s an architect, dad’s a doctor and she lives in a multimillion-dollar Upper East Side apartment — but now, animal lover and unlikely revolutionary Clara Kraebber, who appears in smiling photos on social media, faces a maximum four years in prison on felony riot charges for allegedly joining with the “New Afrikan Black Panther Party” and other groups in a violent protest that caused $100,000 in damage in Manhattan.
Manhattan business owners vented anger and frustration Saturday as they surveyed the damage and cleaned up another mess caused by riotous members of Black Lives Matter, whose protest the night before devolved into a rampage of destruction through the Big Apple.
“I’m sick of this f--king bulls--t!” raged Kevin McGrath, owner of the Five Points Academy boxing gym across the street from a besieged Starbucks at Lafayette and Grand streets in Soho.
The java giant was among dozens of businesses set upon Friday night by BLM demonstrators as part of a planned protest march north from Foley Square to Chelsea and across to Flatiron, resulting in what authorities said was $100,000 in damage to stores and banks.
“What they’re doing is not helping anyone,” said McGrath, 52. “I’ve been frustrated business-wise many, many times in my life, but I didn’t pick up a brick out of frustration and break somebody else’s small business. It’s completely wrong . . . They all should be put in jail, as far as I’m concerned. I thought this s--t was over!”
Some protesters set upon diners enjoying a late-night bite, according to one shocked patron at Cote, a Korean steakhouse in Flatiron, who claimed he saw someone throw “a plant from a dining barrier into the middle of one table’s oyster platter.”
Surveillance footage obtained by The Post captures the moment rioters smashed Starbucks window.
The footage begins with the allblack clad protesters marching down Lafayette, when one decides to make a beeline for the coffee shop. The person, wearing a full face covering, pulls an object out of a bag and begins smashing the window as another fully masked comrade shields the storefront attacker with an open black umbrella. A third person joins with a pair of umbrella shields.
In addition to the Starbucks, the windows of six other businesses below West 22nd Street were smashed, and three more were vandalized, officials said.
Eight people, from 19 to 30 years old, were arrested on rioting and other charges late Friday, police said. One of the arrested protesters is from Portland, Ore., the others are from New York.
Those who live in the path of BLM’s destruction called on Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo to denounce it.
“This movement . . . I think it’s a just cause, but from the governor to the mayor to people in the movement, they need to denounce the violence, and that’s not happening,” said one Soho resident.
Neither de Blasio nor Cuomo responded to requests for comment.