Video Shows NYPD Violently Arresting Bystander in 'Social Distancing' Arrest

By artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 1:57pm |

By Anne Branigan @ TheRoot.com, May 4, WITH VIDEO

As thousands of New Yorkers hit city parks this weekend to revel in warm spring weather, footage of the violent arrest of three people, two of whom were accused of not following social distancing guidelines, has sparked an internal NYPD investigation.

The arrests, captured on cell phone video and on security cameras, took place in the East Village late Saturday afternoon, the New York Daily News reports. Footage of the arrests shows multiple plainclothes officers aggressively confronting two people, 31-year-old Shakiem Brunson and 22-year-old Ashley Serrano outside a deli. As officers converge on the pair, bystanders shout in protest, telling the police Brunson and Serrano weren’t doing anything wrong [....]

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https://www.theroot.com/video-shows-nypd-violently-arresting-bystander-in-socia-1843239398

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For weeks, I've been dwelling on a question that police must wrestle with in their role as the enforcers of social distancing: How do you do that in places where public health crises overlap and mistrust of the police runs deep?
— Ashley Southall (@AshleyAtTimes) May 3, 2020

Yesterday, I saw officers handle it in real time in a place devastated by both the coronavirus and gun violence: Harlem.

Here, Giovanni Otho, 30, was shot and killed a week ago. Yesterday, his community paid tribute in front of the building where he was shot during a dice game pic.twitter.com/2GVF7s1v5h
— Ashley Southall (@AshleyAtTimes) May 3, 2020

If you're the police, who've been tasked with enforcing social distancing, what do you do?
— Ashley Southall (@AshleyAtTimes) May 3, 2020

In this case, the police used squad cars to close the street to traffic so that people had room to spread out. Officers walked through the crowd asking people to stand six feet apart and keep their masks on.
— Ashley Southall (@AshleyAtTimes) May 3, 2020

They had help: Volunteers from Street Corner Resources, a violence prevention group, handed out bags containing masks.

Groups like SCR play a crucial role in the city's fight to end gun violence by detecting and defusing street tensions before they erupt in violence pic.twitter.com/Hah9XAENJq
— Ashley Southall (@AshleyAtTimes) May 3, 2020

They're able to navigate the divide between the police and people at risk of violence by using their community ties and personal experiences to help resolve conflicts and find resources like employment and housing.
— Ashley Southall (@AshleyAtTimes) May 3, 2020

I don't know how or when police got word of the memorial for Mr. Otho, how long it had been going before I arrived, or whether they tried to disperse it. By the time I circled the block, the crowd had dwindled.
— Ashley Southall (@AshleyAtTimes) May 3, 2020

The scene suggested that the zero-tolerance approach to gatherings pushed by the mayor and governor is a landmine for the police.

The obvious risk is that it worsens tensions the city has been working to ease, or worse, results in a death like Eric Garner's.
— Ashley Southall (@AshleyAtTimes) May 3, 2020

.@NYPDShea has signaled reluctance among police to take action. His answer to my question today—about guidance to officers handling events like a memorial— suggests he feels their hands are tied:https://t.co/NoIx3ZMiGO
— Ashley Southall (@AshleyAtTimes) May 3, 2020

Nonetheless, the NYPD is stepping up enforcement. So this is likely to be a growing source of tension as rising temperatures draw a restless city outdoors.
— Ashley Southall (@AshleyAtTimes) May 3, 2020

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 2:11pm

CW: Police violence

This evening in Manhattan, an NYPD officer approaches a group of people filming an arrest, deploys his taser indiscriminately, then grabs a young man and, without provocation, slams him to the ground, starts beating him and, with another cop, handcuffs him. pic.twitter.com/N6bENczkOU
— Rebecca Kavanagh (@DrRJKavanagh) May 3, 2020

This is AMERICA!

Fuck the NYPD. Fuck this police state!

BLACK LIVES MATTER

WHO IS THIS COP? pic.twitter.com/70QfMUIF3K
— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) May 3, 2020

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 2:16pm

Some people may disagree - but transporting ziplock bags of marijuana & a digital scale in your backpack does not make you an essential traveler in the eyes of the Transit police. Hopping a turnstile while doing so didn’t help either. Nice grab by our District 1 team! pic.twitter.com/OEcadRoARd
— NYPD Transit (@NYPDTransit) May 2, 2020

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 2:18pm

Looks like Garcia was violating the law by not wearing a mask.

by rmrd0000 on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 2:24pm

Hasidim are getting tickets and black people are getting beaten in the streets by the NYPD.

At least they’re being honest about who they’re here for. https://t.co/ywAnB6AzVb
— Elad Nehorai (@PopChassid) May 3, 2020

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 2:28pm

The unsurprising conclusion: we'd rather you police yourselves, if you want to infect each other, go ahead:

NYPD union wants cops out of 'social distancing enforcement' https://t.co/r2fLoAi8zr pic.twitter.com/huQpVOoKH6
— New York Post (@nypost) May 4, 2020

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 3:09pm

And if people can't see the equivalence on a national level, they're being willfully blind.

America has a strong anti-authoritarian strain running all through it. Incidents of abuses of power just feeds that narrative.

Some think NYPD is full of Nazis, others think the Michigan state house and governor are Nazis.

We are not a country made for following rules of a totalitarian public health regime. A totalitarian public health regime would work best at this time. Is not possible here.

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 2:38pm

Another solution, offer masks to those without them throughout the city.

Slamming the bystander to the ground and slapping him does not instill trust.

by rmrd0000 on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 3:11pm

As long as we are talking pie in the sky, how about joining the police force so there are less violent brutes in it? And then not doing "us vs. them" all the time?

Always going to be bad apples in every bunch.

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 3:26pm

And hey, I just paid my NYC property tax bill the other day. Still haven't seen an answer from NYC about why my homestead credit disappeared from the bill. Because: NYC bureaucrats: not essential workers! Nobody at work (they never answered the phone anyways.)

.And now you're telling me I am supposed to get a free face mask! I paid, where's my free face mask?!!!

How do you think free face masks get paid for, rmrd? Where are they going to come from? Do you think they fall from the sky? Sure wish they had been falling out of the sky at Mt. Sinai hospital a couple weeks ago.

Oh did I mention that NYPD are essential workers and therefore a lot of them have gotten it and been out sick?

Do you get this context: crisis, bankrupt city, many people dying?

You really don't see how your world has changed, do you? Just seeing everything through the same old, same old single frame: color of skin.

Edit to add: Do you realize that many NYPD don't have white skin?

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 3:39pm

The world definitely has not changed

Edit to add:

Wisconsin voters were made to risk their lives

The Senate came back during a pandemic to vote for Conservative judges

Republicans block funding that would go to those most in need.

by rmrd0000 on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 4:18pm

I find very interesting that, in the current "freedom" debate about coronavirus, the freedoms that people are discussing--the freedom to stand close to people, get a haircut, etc.--aren't actually the sorts of things that conservatives believe are protected by the Constitution https://t.co/FfpUne9hPf
— Carissa Byrne Hessick (@CBHessick) May 4, 2020

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 3:24pm

The national motto is "Don't Tell me what to do." That couldn't cause problems, could it?

by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 4:42pm

Yeah, goes all the way back to before the Boston Tea Party. Is why most of the people that were here before that came here: didn't like being told what to do in the old country.

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 4:55pm

More likely there were relatively few ways to enforce them in the new. Like the Wild Wild West - you *are* the authorities, and no one within 300 miles to say you're not. With each fiefdom in the colonies as land grants and largely an old fashioned writ of royalty, they were all Barons and Dukes and Counts. Once they told the King to piss off, it went to their heads.

by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 5:06pm

Complicating the situation. April 15:

NYPD has hundreds more coronavirus cases than previously reported @ NYPost.com

The number of NYPD members who have contracted the coronavirus has actually topped 4,000 — far more than what has been publicized, The Post has learned.

A total of 4,080 members of the NYPD — 3,350 uniformed officers and 730 civilian employees — have tested positive for the pandemic COVID-19 since the outbreak hit New York City, police sources said.

That number is nearly 1,300 more than the NYPD reported Tuesday in its daily coronavirus update, where it said 2,232 officers and 568 employees were diagnosed with the virus.

That’s because the NYPD was only providing to the press the number of members who had contracted the virus and were still out sick, sources said.

Once they returned to the job, they were taken off the count.

It was unclear when the total number of NYPD cases, which was widely reported, became inaccurate — but it became clear on Monday when the number of total cases dropped by 10.

So far, 25 members of the NYPD have died from coronavirus complications. Five of them were uniformed members and the other 20 were civilian employees.

The NYPD did not immediately respond for comment.

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 3:48pm

Perhaps Garcia should be wearing a mask

by rmrd0000 on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 4:05pm

Here we go, I came across this one because someone I follow retweeted it with the comment "I had no idea comedy still existed on this platform"

Police in the U.S. need to realize they stand at the precipice of losing the trust, support, and protection of millions of American patriots.

They must reverse course and refuse unlawful orders, or risk being declared domestic enemies of the Constitution. @StewartRhodesOK https://t.co/ir9R9fdGYl
— Oath Keepers (@Oathkeepers) May 2, 2020

by artappraiser on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 5:57pm

50th anniversary of Kent State today - I like these riot police much better - and the crowd & commenters much worse.

by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 6:09pm

The cops in this photo are in a planter.
it was different back in the day.

by moat on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 6:29pm

Video Shows NYPD Violently Arresting Bystander in 'Social Distancing' Arrest

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