TENSIONS BOIL
Pro-police marchers clash with
BY ROSE ADAMS
Dozens of pro-police and
Black Lives Matter protesters
clashed during a pair
of rallies and counter-protests
in Bay Ridge and Dyker
Heights over the weekend,
with some supporters of the
NYPD instigating violence
and hurling racist insults
towards counter-protesters
and even media members.
The weekend of unrest began
Saturday with a “Rally
to Back the Blue” in Dyker
Heights, where more than
300 mostly white demonstrators
marched up 13th Avenue
from Bay Ridge Parkway to
86th Street. They chanted
pro-police slogans and waved
“Thin Blue Line” American
fl ags in support of law enforcement.
At the start of the march,
a group of about a dozen
counter-protesters met at
the corner of 13th Avenue
and Bay Ridge Parkway in
support of the Black Lives
Matter movement. While
many marchers ignored
counter-protesters, one eyewitness
said, a large group
of pro-police attendees hung
back and cursed at them,
called them names, and
mocked them for wearing
face masks. That account
has been verified by more
than one viral video.
One enraged pro-cop protester
didn’t hesitate to spew
racist and sexually explicit
language at one Black Lives
Matter supporter.
“I’ll spit on you, you piece
of sh—,” the pro-cop protester
said in a clip posted
on Twitter, who allegedly did
spit on counter-protesters,
according to a witness. “You
suck Black d—.”
The same pro-police protester
kneed another Black
Lives Matter in the groin
completely unprovoked, the
victim said.
“I basically couldn’t see
straight. Our medic who was
on scene said I turned incredibly
pale and said I needed
to go to the hospital,” said
Noah Weston, a Bay Ridge
resident who helped organize
the counter-protest. “As
ludicrous as it seems, I ended
up having to go to the hospital
where they told me I had
sustained a testicular contusion.”
Another Black Lives Matter
protester said several
pro-police attendees repeatedly
told her and other female
counter-protesters to
“get raped.”
“There was a lot of men
who just kept screaming
at us, ‘Go get raped! Go get
raped and see who you’re going
to call then!'” said Vanessa
Cavanagh. “People were
following us saying, ‘We’re
going to fi nd out where you
live, we’re going to f—k you
up.”
Eventually, many of the
“Back the Blue” demonstrators
abandoned the counterprotesters,
but a handful
kept close by to them.
At the back of the march,
a pro-cop protester smashed
a journalist’s camera on the
ground and hit her with it, a
video shows.
“One of the blue lives matter
protesters shoved me
hard into a tree and another
grabbed my camera, hit me
with it and shattered it on
the ground,” the journalist
tweeted. “How is that a way
to prove their point?”
Many counter-protesters
had already scattered before
the march reached the park
Dozens of Brooklynites gathered for dueling protests on July 11.
at the end of the rally route,
Cavanagh said.
There, local politicians
addressed the crowd — many
of whom took issue with recent
cuts to the NYPD budget
amid a spike in citywide
crime.
“We are seeing burglaries,
robberies, murder, all categories
that have sky rocketed,”
said Assemblywoman Nicole
Malliotakis, a congressional
candidate for the 11th District
who will face off against
Democratic incumbent Max
Rose in November. “The policies
colleagues on the other side
of the aisle are the cause of
this. The anti-police rhetoric
is the cause of this.”
also attended the pro-police
rally — as did Gounardes’
predecessor Marty Golden.
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being put in place by my
Vito Bruno, a Republican
running for State Senator
Andrew Gounardes’ seat,
One of the rally’s organizers
called the violent and
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