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Peaceful Protesters Face NYPD Backlash in Brooklyn

Despite declines in looting and vandalism, police made violent arrests across the city Wednesday night.
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Protesters gathered at Domino Park Wednesday evening on the seventh night of protests in New York City following the killing of George Floyd. Photo: Alex Williamson/BK Reader

The protests following the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man strangled by police in Minnesota on May 25, continued in Brooklyn on Wednesday. Despite the demonstrations themselves being overwhelmingly peaceful, NYPD officers began to shut down protests with violent arrests in Downtown Brooklyn and Crown Heights after the city's 8pm curfew, according to witness accounts.

One of the borough's many protests began at Eastern Parkway and Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights, and marched to McCaren Park then to Domino Park in honor of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman shot by police eight times in her Louisville, Kentucky home in March.

George Floyd protests Brooklyn
A protester chants as the march moves through Williamsburg. Photo: Alex Williamson/BK Reader

Marching south on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, protesters shouted up at residents watching from balconies or windows.

"Get down here, gentrifiers!" one protester shouted.

"Come down for the Instagram, whites!" said another.

From a platform at Domino Park, where the group arrived around 7pm, organizers addressed the crowd and spoke about the plight of black women in America.

"We're here for our black sisters, whose postpartum death rate is astronomically high. Black women always show up for black men, so we've got to show up for black women," one speaker told the crowd of over one thousand demonstrators gathered along the waterfront.

George Floyd protests Brooklyn
Protester pass beneath banners that read "Something is changing in me, now. Something is changing in you, I feel it" in Spanish. Photo: Alex Williamson/BK Reader

"This has to be used as a trigger," another speaker told the protesters. "You being here doesn't change anything. Most of you are friends or family with white cops and judges. Your job is to go back to your community and uproot white supremacy."

George Floyd protests Brooklyn
Demonstrators raise their fists as spectators lean from windows in Williamsburg. Photo: Alex Williamson/BK Reader

The demonstrators dispersed ahead of the the 8pm curfew, while other marches proceeded nearby. A group of approximately 1,000 marched east along Metropolitan Avenue, eventually making its way through South Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Clinton Hill, Downtown Brooklyn, Park Slope, and Prospect Heights, where there were still a few hundred protesters marching just before 10pm, despite the curfew and despite a brief downpour.

Several NYPD vans followed the group with their lights on, but did not interfere with protesters.

George Floyd protests Brooklyn
Protesters arrive at Barclays Center Wednesday night as a thunderstorm passes through. Photo: Alex Williamson/BK Reader

Meanwhile, NYPD officers boxed another protest group into Cadman Plaza around sunset, then pulled out batons at about 9pm and started beating the trapped demonstrators, resulting in multiple injuries, according to an account posted to Twitter by New York Times reporter Ali Watkins.

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams witnessed the incident, which he called "disgusting."

https://twitter.com/JumaaneWilliams/status/1268351817374674951

Just after 11pm at Bergen Street and New York Avenue in Crown Heights, reporter Scott Heins witnessed police vans loaded with arrestees, and heard from witnesses who said the police made violent arrests just before.

https://twitter.com/scottheins/status/1268382550134833153

Dozens of peaceful protesters were also arrested on the Upper East Side of Manhattan Wednesday night.

While Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday that the police should not use violence against non-violent protesters, even after curfew, he defended the NYPD's use of force during a press conference Thursday morning, citing the curfew.