BY JESSICA PARKS
Hundreds of pro-police
supporters paraded through
southern Brooklyn on Aug. 9
as part of what participants
called a peaceful, diverse rally
to “Back the Blue” — though it
ended with an attack on a teenaged
counter-protester.
“It was a peaceful event,”
said former state Sen. Marty
Golden, who attended the
march from Avenue U and
Burnett Street in Marine Park
to Dr. John’s Playground at PS
277 in Gerritsen Beach.
Golden, a Republican who
represented a swath of southern
Brooklyn for decades before
losing to Democrat Andrew
Gounardes in November
2018, was rumored to have organized
the march, but he told
Brooklyn Paper that his former
staffer Anthony Testaverde —
who came under fi re in 2018 for
anti-Semitic Facebook posts
— had actually planned the
event, which sources say drew
hundreds of attendees from
Brooklyn and beyond.
Former members of the
NYPD and families of fallen
offi cers addressed the gathered
COURIER L 6 IFE, AUGUST 14-20, 2020
crowd at the schoolyard
— where a small group of
young counter-protesters also
confronted marchers, chanting
“Black Lives Matter.” After
the two groups exchanged
words, a video obtained by
Brooklyn Paper shows a middle
aged woman grabbing a 14-
year-old counter-protester by
the neck and shoving her after
a fellow marcher proclaims
“White lives matter, f–k you.”
Nearby offi cers responded
to the incident, according to
sources — but the NYPD did
not move forward with any
charges against the attacker.
Sunday’s march was advertised
to be “non-political”
because supporting the city’s
peacekeepers is not a political
statement as they are a necessary
facet of a functioning society,
Golden said.
“How is backing our police
political?” asked Golden. “The
Police Department is that thin
blue line that keeps the civility
and keeps people from committing
crimes.”
But, as pro-cop rallies crop
up across the country, Black
Lives Matter demonstrators
pushing for police reform say
the showings are, in themselves,
political statements.
“I think trying to neutralize
and normalize a pro-police
sentiment is a political statement
in itself,” said Alana
Maisel, co-founder of the Marine
Park Political Youth, an
organization for young, leftleaning
Marine Park residents
that participated in a July 19
counter-protest at the sprawling
greenspace. “It’s basically
a defense mechanism against
any sort of debate. And they
Pro-police supporters waved American fl ags as they paraded through
Marine Park and Gerritsen Beach. Photo by Arthur de Gaeta
need to know they’re gonna
get confronted on it.”
Encounters have been especially
contentious across
the fi ve boroughs — and in
Brooklyn neighborhoods like
Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and
Marine Park — on the heels
of recent cuts to the NYPD’s
budget, which drew ire on
both sides of the aisle, and on
both sides of the push to defund
the New York Police Department.
Golden, however, cited the
city’s rising violence as a reason
to keep the city’s police
fully funded.
“It is time to pull back and
straighten out NYPD-related
legislation so the cops can get
back to work,” he said.
TENSIONS RISING
Pro-police march in southern Brooklyn ends
amid violent altercation with protesters
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