6 THE QUEENS COURIER • JULY 16, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
protest
Harassment, spitting and assault: Inside
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
aacevedo@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
When a pro-police rally and a Black
Lives Matter demonstration faced off in
Crocheron Park in Bayside on Sunday,
July 12, several incidents of harassment
and one assault took center stage. Only
one individual, who claims he wasn’t
responsible for any of those incidents, was
arrested as a result of the bedlam.
Th e two separate demonstrations in
Bayside took place on Sunday, with the
Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstration
kicking off fi rst around noon. Th at
demonstration began at Crocheron
Park and marched to Bell Boulevard.
But Jessica, one of the organizers with
Bayside’s BLM group who asked for her
last name not to be used, said that they
decided to head back to the park aft er
about fi ve protesters with Warriors in the
Garden — a collective of activists dedicated
to nonviolent protest — told her they
were encountering some pushback from
pro-police demonstrators at the park.
Th e Warriors originally decided to leave
the BLM march to Bell due to a “heavy
police escort,” which they said they’ve had
bad experiences with in the past.
But back at the park, the t w o
sets of demonstra- t o r s
started to engage
in discussions
that quickly
escalated to
verbal attacks.
While the BLM
protesters started
reading out
some police
facts and
telling the
pro-police demonstrators why they
should join them, with a fence in between
the two groups, some individuals with
the pro-police group on the other side
began yelling and spit- ting at
them. Th is led the BLM protesters
to come around the
fence to tell police offi -
cers about what some
members of the pro-police
group were doing
and see if they could
fi le com- plaints. Th ings
quick- ly escalated
from there.
As the two groups
got closer, verbal
attacks turned physical.
Police tried to create a
barrier between the hundreds
of pro-police demonstrators
and the few dozen BLM demonstrators.
But according to some
BLM demonstrators, someone from
the pro-police group managed to
avoid the barrier.
An unidentifi ed white man wearing
a gray T-shirt with the words
“NYPD” and no mask was seen slapping
a woman marching with Bayside’s Black
Lives Matter group. Kristen McManus, a
37-year-old Bayside resident, told QNS
she is the woman who was slapped.
She told QNS the man came up from
behind the Black Lives Matter group and
started harassing and spitting at some of
the protesters.
While they were trying to protect other
Black and Brown members, he reached
out and hit her across the face.
“Aft er he did that, the crowd took aft er
him, and he went running,” McManus
said. “I tried telling the cops, but they
didn’t stop him. I had cops surrounding
me, but nobody asked if I needed medical
attention or if I wanted to fi le a report. It
was like being in a riot, almost.”
She said the alleged attack happened
around 2:30 p.m.
“I only know because of my Fitbit, I had
about 148 heartbeats per minute at that
time,” McManus said. “It didn’t go down
by much that whole day.”
Th e unidentifi ed man was not arrested
on the scene.
When McManus reported the incident
the following day at the 111th Precinct,
police told her she should’ve called 911 as
Photos by Dean Moses
soon as it happened.
“If you were hit and there’s a wall of
police, and you’re saying that the man is
right there and nobody turns to see …
Th at’s the problem. Th at’s why we protest,”
she said. “My hair is neon pink; I’m standing
out in a crowd. You can see I’m asking
for help and they’re acting like I’m invisible.
If they’re gonna do that to me, how
can we expect them to take care of anyone
else?”
Jessica said when some protesters tried
to get his motorcycle’s license plate, the
police told them to stay back.
When asked if any arrests have been
made in connection to McManus’ assault
and if the man had been identifi ed as of
Tuesday, an NYPD spokesperson said
there are no updates as of yet. McManus
said that when she fi led a report the following
day, police told her it doesn’t qualify
as an assault because she didn’t make
the call at the scene. But when McManus
asked a representative from the Legal Aid
Society, they told her that is incorrect and
it is up to the district attorney’s offi ce to
make that call.
It is still unclear, then, how and why
Yacine Diallo, a 21-year-old protester with
Yacine Diallo, 21, was arrested at Crocheron Park’s parking lot.
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