Mayor Bill de Blasio: This morning, I’m going to speak very plainly about what is happening in this country, in this city, and it begins with an acknowledgment that there is a poison in this land, there is something profoundly wrong, and in so many ways we pretend to see it, pretend to address it but we don’t do it in a deep and meaningful way. And that’s why we are experiencing everything we are experiencing. There is a poison of structural racism. It haunts the lives of people of color every day in this country, in this city – every day. And I want to speak as someone who acknowledges my own reality as a white male, acknowledges that privilege, acknowledges that I can only understand so much. But I know enough to say that for so many people of color and particularly members of the Black community. Every day is pervaded by racism, that hatred lurks around the corner at all times. From the moment people become conscious of the world around them to the day they leave they know racism as a constant, as a weight, as a pain. And that anger and frustration, the fear, the confusion that comes with that is part of people’s lives, that must be expressed and acted on because you just have to acknowledge we can’t go on like this. And I’m talking to everyone but I am particularly talking to white New Yorkers to say we can’t go on like this.
We can’t have so many of our fellow New Yorkers live in pain throughout their lives, and then have that pain deepened over and over and over again. So, let’s be clear, the coronavirus crisis has created a depth of pain that still has not been accounted for. So many New Yorkers have lost someone but that is particularly true in communities of color and particularly true in the African American community. That loss, that loss is being felt so deeply because everyone knows it’s not based on equality, it wasn’t that everyone lost the same way, communities of color lost so much more. When I walked through Queensbridge Houses in Queens on Monday, I heard the most painful stories of people who had lost loved ones and could not even mourn them because of this crisis. And the fact that I heard story after story after story in just one walk-through, one housing development, spoke volumes about how much pain there is out there and then you add the horrible insult of that video of Amy Cooper – the epitome of American white racism in one video, her allegation being, her indictment being that there was a Black man in her midst. Literally criminalizing the very act of being a Black man. That’s what we saw before our eyes and it brought up, for so many people, the fundamental contradiction that pervades our society, that until we heal it we can’t move forward. We just can’t. It will just tear at us and tear at us.
And then the entire nation watches George Floyd killed in broad daylight by someone who is supposed to protect us with no concern at all, his killer seemed to have no emotion about the fact that he was killing a Black man as if there was no value in that man. And unfortunately, that’s what the history of this country has taught too many people and we have to stop it. So, I’m beginning by saying that raw pain, anger, frustration it gets brought up so deeply in moments like this but it’s an every day, every hour thing for Black New Yorkers, for Latino New Yorkers, for so many people who deal with the pain of racism, pervasive in their lives.
Now, last night there were protests. I was in Brooklyn with Commissioner Shea and these protests brought up a lot of issues that we have to address. We have spent years changing the nature of policing in this city and we have much, much more to do. We all know that. And last night was a difficult, complex situation. I’m going to speak about what our officers went through but I first want to say there were people who came there to peacefully protest, there were others who came there obviously to try and incite acts of violence. But it’s our obligation as the City government, it’s the NYPD’s obligation to find the best possible way to keep peace, to protect everyone, to avoid anything that allows further violence to occur but that means also recognizing that any aggressive act towards a peaceful protestor sends exactly the wrong message. It’s wrong in every way but it also sets us back.
There were elected officials at this protest, some of whom were pepper sprayed. What a horrible, horrible situation that the people who represent us, who are there on behalf of their community peacefully observing, trying to help keep the peace, that they ended up being victims of pepper spraying. That’s unacceptable and we need to understand exactly why that happened. There needs to be accountability. We’ve seen some videos that do not reflect the philosophy of this city, the values of this city, the values of this administration, do not reflect the values of the NYPD. We’ve seen some videos where protestors were handled very violently and very roughly, and that is not neighborhood policing and we will not accept that kind of behavior from any police officer.
But I’ll tell you, at the same time, we saw acts of violence from protestors that have nothing to do with the tradition of peaceful, democratic protest that has pervaded the history of New York City. New York City honors the right to protest. The NYPD has protected protestors for generations of every point of view and done it well but some protestors last night came with an agenda of violence and incitement and they meant to harm police officers and they did harm police officers. They meant to attack police vehicles and they did. They meant to attack police precincts and that is all purely unacceptable. It does not reflect our values. We will not accept that. I want to remind everyone that the man and woman on the beat made a decision to join the police in the name of peace. They are not the policy-makers, they are the people trying to protect their fellow New Yorkers. They were subjected to horrible, vile things last night and tremendous violence and that will not stand. Because they are working men and women and any protestor who tries to take the humanity away from a police officer and devalue them just because they are a public servant is no better than the racists who devalue people of color and particularly black men in America.
So, if you’re a peaceful protestor, we will go to the ends of the Earth to protect your right to protest, whatever your viewpoint. We will always make sure you have that right but if you are there to incite violence we cannot and will not allow that. A lot happened last night. I could tell from being there how much was happening, how complex it was, how dangerous the situation was. We need to get to the bottom of exactly what happened and how we can do things better. I’m going to initiate an independent review immediately of the events of last night. I will announce the details later on today but I want to know exactly what happened, why it happened, and what can be done better. I want there to be accountability for anyone, whatever their status, but I also want to know what we can do better to avoid any acts of violence and we are working as we speak today to make sure that the protests in the days to come will be as peaceful as humanly possible, that there will be different protocols and approaches to ensure the right to protest is honored and that everyone can do so in a peaceful manner.
I also want to say that we will engage community leaders and community members immediately to determine how to approach protests better and differently. We’re going to engage members of the Cure Violence Movement who have done outstanding work in their neighborhoods stopping violence to work on how to make sure protests occur without violence as well. We’re going to reach to the grassroots, elected officials, community leaders, Cure Violence Movement leaders to determine the best way in the weeks and months ahead to honor the rights of all New Yorkers and keep the peace simultaneously. It was a long and difficult night and we intend to do better. With that, I’ll turn to Commissioner Dermot Shea –
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, across the city the last two nights we have had demonstrations. At times those demonstrations have turned violent, unfortunately. This is, in my view, something we have seen across American cities. In the last two days and specifically last night in Brooklyn we had a protest of approximately 3,000 individuals that was splintered into several smaller protests. During the course of the evening I can tell you that we affected over 200 arrests. We have multiple officers injured. I can tell you some of the things that those officers encountered. We had Molotov cocktails recovered. We had an arrest affected for attempted murder of four police officers by an individual throwing a Molotov cocktail into an occupied marked police van. We had a firearm recovered, we had brass knuckles recovered, we had countless bricks and other items thrown at police officers. Again, this was a volatile, as the Mayor said, dangerous situation and any and all violence we denounce. We can do better than this and we must. We fully support – and I want to thank all the police officers, all the members of the community, all the elected officials that were out either working the event last night or demonstrating peacefully. And that’s the key word here, peacefully. We fully remain committed to supporting the right to publicly assemble, to protest, to free speech, this is at the heart of everything, everything that we believe in. But at the same time, we will have zero tolerance for individuals looking to cause harm to anyone and unfortunately, we saw that repeatedly last night as well.
