Crowd in Harlem hurls bottles at police, vid shows
Police responding to a report of shots fired in Harlem early Sunday were met by a raucous crowd hurling bottles, startling video shows.
The officers pulled up to Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. and 133rd St. about 3:45 a.m. to investigate activation of a ShotSpotter, the NYPD’s hightech sensor for detecting gunfire, according to police.
After investigating the scene and recovering shell casings and fired bullets, the officers tried to disperse the crowd of more than 500 that had gathered on the boulevard between W. 131st and W. 133rd Sts., according to police.
They were met with bottles and other flying objects. When backup arrived to help disperse the crowd, the cops were also met with a hail of bottles, police said.
Video shows the NYPD vehicles idling on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. and 132nd St. while a group of about a dozen men and a women sitting in the bed of a red pickup truck lob glass bottles and other objects.
As the NYPD vehicles began to back away, the crowd grew louder, chasing the SUVs down the block and jeering.
At one point, a man with a limp ran up and grabbed a bottle to throw at a police vehicle while the man recording the video yelled, “Even the crackheads are getting these n——s.”
Cops stayed on the scene until the crowd dispersed about 6:20 a.m., police said. No arrests were made, and the incident was under investigation, according to cops.
“People have been cooped up with COVID and everything else” a neighbor who didn’t want to be named told the Daily News. “Plus it was late, people were drinking. That’s when things like that start happening.”
The five-minute video ends with cops retreating a block down Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. as the morning sun rises in the background.
“This is what a ‘light touch’ looks like,” the city’s largest police union, the Police Benevolent Association, tweeted in response to the video, adding that Mayor De Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan) “should be held responsible for surrendering our city.”
The Sergeants Benevolent Association also decried the clash. “DeBlasio’s MESS,” the union tweeted “Where is that fraud Corey Johnson now? Corey are you calling for an investigation into the breakdown of the NYPDs Community Policing Program? Of course not this isn’t your neighborhood!”
The heated responses from the police unions comes after the City Council proposed a $1 billion budget cut to the NYPD. The proposed slash in funding follows weeks of unruly protests in New York after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
While NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea has been open to cutting small parts of the budget, especially surrounding ancillary services like school police, he warned, in an interview with WPIX, that major budget cuts while the city is facing a surge in crime would have a negative impact on the communities the Finest aim to serve.
Police released photos of one of the bottle-throwers Sunday night and asked anyone with info to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.