CIVIL RIGHTS
Is Brutality New York City Policy?
De Blasio acknowledges he approved specifi c police tactics, including use of batons
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
While it has been apparent
that Mayor
Bill de Blasio was
closely following the
New York City protests responding
to the police killing of George Floyd
in Minneapolis since they began,
he told the press that he approved
the more aggressive tactics the
NYPD started using against peaceful
protestors on June 2.
“I approved the broad strategies
and sometimes very specifi c choices,”
de Blasio said during a June 7
press conference.
The city had already banned
public gatherings in March in response
to the COVID-19 outbreak,
but following Floyd’s death on May
25, protests, largely peaceful, began
on New York City streets and
the mayor generally expressed
sympathy for and even solidarity
with the marchers.
At June 7 presser, de Blasio acknowledges
he approved specifi c
police tactics, including use of batons
On May 30 and 31 and June 1,
the city saw looting by what appeared
to be organized criminal
groups and some general mayhem
by people who have typically
been described as anarchists. The
peaceful protests also continued.
On June 1, the city implemented
an 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew on that
day and then an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.
curfew on the followings days until
it was lifted entirely on June 7.
June 2 marked the beginning
of more aggressive tactics wielded
against peaceful protestors as the
NYPD enforced the 8 p.m. curfew.
Typically, police would corral a
march by placing lines of offi cers
behind and in front of participants.
Offi cers then made arrests.
Marti Gould Cummings, a drag
performer and a candidate for City
Council, was with a group that
had attended a June 2 vigil at
the Stonewall Inn then marched
to Union Square. Cummings was
arrested on the route. Video of
the arrest shows Cummings being
thrown to the street and surrounded
The scene on June 2 when Marti Gould Cummings got arrested.
by police. Cummings suffered
a concussion.
“The mayor is not fi t to serve offi
ce and must resign,” Cummings
wrote in a statement. “His inaction
that kept Eric Garner’s murderer
on the force, his lack of leadership,
and his allowing the NYPD to infl
ict violence on peaceful protestors
is abhorrent and morally wrong.
He should be ashamed.”
Jason Rosenberg, a member of
ACT UP and other activist groups,
was also marching following the
June 2 vigil at the Stonewall. At
his arrest, Rosenberg, who did not
respond to an email seeking comment,
had a wound opened on the
top of his skull, most likely from
a police baton, that required nine
staples to close and a dislocation
or fracture to his arm.
“We were peacefully protesting
near The New School either 13th
and Fifth or 14th and Fifth and
we started to see some escalation,”
Rosenberg said in a video he posted
on Twitter. “A lot of us linked arms
in solidarity and in civil disobedience…
We were all thrown to the
ground. I was beaten on all sides.”
These more aggressive police
tactics received wider and sustained
attention after video appeared
of police charging crowds of
protestors and striking them with
batons in Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza
and in the Union Square area
on June 3 after curfew and into the
TWITTER/ @MARTIGCUMMINGS
early morning on June 4.
There is no evidence that City
Hall was monitoring the police action
where Cummings and Rosenberg
were injured, but the mayor or
City Hall staff have kept a close eye
on many other protests, and the
mayor has referred to the many
daily calls he has had with Dermot
Shea, the police commissioner, and
other senior NYPD offi cers. Among
the tactics he appears to have approved
is the use of batons.
“I think baton usage should be
minimal,” the mayor said on June
7.
Late on June 2 or early on June 3,
police had corralled a group of protestors
on the Manhattan Bridge.
The protestors turned around and
went back to Brooklyn after negotiating
with the NYPD. The mayor
was watching from nearby.
“So I was observing the situation
at the Manhattan Bridge
from a site very nearby and talking
it through with Commissioner
Shea and I think it was the right
decision to say there’s a curfew,”
the mayor said during his June 3
press conference.
At his June 5 press conference,
the mayor disagreed with a reporter’s
characterization of police beating
peaceful protestors during a
march in the Mott Haven section of
the Bronx. He relied on “observers
from City Hall who saw a very different
reality than what you saw.
We’re always watching.”
The mayor added, “The plan,
and it’s been the same day after
day, that if there’s peaceful protest,
it is being respected… I’ve been out
right in the middle of these protests,
watching constantly hundreds
or thousands of people going
by, I’m watching how they are
comporting themselves and how
the NYPD is comporting itself.”
The city is likely to face lawsuits
from people who were injured during
the protests. In prior administrations,
police and City Hall have
avoided making statements that
implicate the NYPD or the mayor
in police actions because such
statements can become evidence
in lawsuits. De Blasio’s statement
that the police handling of peaceful
protests was done on his instructions
and he and his City Hall staff
were closely monitoring the protests
to, in part, assess compliance
with his instructions could expose
the city to greater legal liability.
“Most claims are actually individual
claims of civil rights violations
by an individual offi cer,” said
Michael L. Spiegel, an attorney
who has handled multiple lawsuits
against the city. “A Monell claim
argues that someone in authority
did it. Here you have the mayor of
the city saying, ‘I approved this,’ so
it becomes not just a claim against
the individual offi cer who brought
down his baton on someone’s head,
but it becomes a claim against the
city itself.”
A legal doctrine of qualifi ed immunity
is often used to excuse
wrongdoing by individual offi cers,
but that doctrine would not excuse
the city. Additionally, juries might
have less sympathy for the city,
which they might perceive as having
millions to pay out, than for an
individual offi cer.
“We would argue that the policy
is violating an individual’s civil
rights,” said Norman Siegel, a civil
rights attorney. “If this is a policy,
it puts the city of New York in a vulnerable
legal posture… We won’t
know for many weeks how vulner-
➤ BRUTALITY POLICY?, continued on p.16
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