FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM JULY 16, 2020 • THE QUEENS COURIER 7
protest
the ugly bedlam at Bayside protests
Warriors in the Garden, was arrested a
few minutes aft er McManus’ incident at
Crocheron Park’s parking lot. A video of
the moment it occurred shows several
police offi cers grabbing and beating him
while he was on the ground before he
was arrested, followed by cheers from the
pro-police demonstrators.
Diallo, a Black man, told QNS he didn’t
even see it coming. Diallo said he was
at the front of their group, making sure
there was a “good barrier” between them,
the police and pro-police demonstrators,
when he heard a scream.
“When I went to see what happened, I
saw a police offi cer come at me, then fi ve
came at me, and I didn’t know what happened,”
Diallo said. “While I was on the
ground they kept punching me.”
Diallo, a Bronx resident, was arrested
and taken to the 111th Precinct at about
2:36 p.m. He said police offi cers did not
tell him why he was detained and refused
to give him medical attention when he
asked.
“Th ey said, ‘You are detained so you
can’t ask,’” said Diallo, who was never
arrested or in a police car before Sunday.
“A police offi cer told me I was going there
for my own security. I’m like, ‘How are
you putting me in jail for my own security?’”
He was released at about 7 p.m.
Fellow Warriors in the Garden members
waited for him and called a Legal Aid
Society representative to help.
According to an NYPD spokesperson,
Diallo was arrested for “attempting to hit
an unidentifi ed victim with a closed fi st.”
Th e spokesperson said he’s charged with
inciting a riot, attempted assault, and disorderly
conduct and harassment. He was
also given a desk appearance ticket. Diallo
said he was only told about one charge:
inciting a riot.
“I have to go to court, so I’m working
with my lawyer,” said Diallo, adding that
he’s been resting and fi guring out what to
do now. “What they did to me, they will
do to another person.”
Steve Behar, a lifelong resident of
Bayside who was marching with the Black
Lives Matter protesters and was at the
scene of the arrest, claimed the cops targeted
Diallo. He also said he told one of
the offi cers the unidentifi ed white man on
a motorcycle was causing the trouble, but
they told him they “didn’t see it happen.”
“His name was Offi cer Morales, and his
response was, ‘I didn’t see anything’ — as
if they need to see something to investigate,”
Behar said.
Behar and Jessica added that a few
moments aft er Diallo’s arrest, a police
offi cer pepper sprayed two other Black
women with the Black Lives Matter group.
Video of that moment is not available.
In the moments leading up to the incidents
in the park’s parking lot, Behar
described a tense encounter between the
hundreds of Blue Lives Matter and the few
dozen Black Lives Matter demonstrators.
“Th ey started screaming racial slurs,
telling Asians and Hispanics to ‘go back
to their country,’” Behar said.
Jessica, with Bayside’s BLM group, said
she witnessed some questionable behavior
from the police offi cers working the protests
that day. One instance was when she
told their police escort they were turning
back to the park, which she claimed was
met with frustration from the offi cers in
charge.
“One officer
said to me,
‘What, you lost
control of the
crowd?’ And
we said ‘No,
you lost control
of us.’
Some of the
cops were
mad and I
heard one say,
‘I wish I could
punch them in
the face,’” she
said.
Aft er the incidents
took place
and the pro-police
march was
about to begin,
Diallo and Jessica both
claimed they heard
one of the commanding
offi cers tell police
offi cers to turn on their
body cameras.
“We were like, ‘Are
you kidding me?’” Jessica said, adding
that the whole time, police offi cers were
staring them down — something they did
not do to the pro-police group.
McManus and Diallo don’t understand
how a man physically assaulted a woman
hasn’t been arrested.
“How did he get to walk away?” Yacine
said. “I’m ‘inciting a riot’ and they have
someone on video hitting a girl who got
away. Th is is a joke.”
Jessica and McManus said they’ve tried
to ask around for the man’s name but have
had no luck. Th e two Bayside residents
said when they posted about the incidents
that took place in the parking lot in
a Bayside Facebook group, they were met
with some derogatory comments and censoring
from admins.
“Someone commented, ‘Don’t talk s— if
you can’t back it up,’” Jessica said.
Jessica, who said she’s received death
threats for being part of the Bayside Black
Lives Matter group, told QNS that the
incidents won’t stop them from bringing
more attention to issues of police violence
and systemic racism to the neighborhood.
“I speak as an ally, and even
that is infuriating to all of
Bayside, Queens,” she said.
“We’re not gonna stop protesting
in this area because
that happened. If anything
,they just solidifi ed the
fact that we need to do
it more.”
McManus, a Queens
native who works at a
school in Elmhurst,
agreed.
“What happened
to me is very minor
compared to what Black
and Brown people have
happen to them by cops and
racists on a daily basis,” she said.
“Th is is only going to make me
go even harder.”
QNS reached out to the
NYPD with a list of questions
regarding Sunday’s events, but
have not received a response.
The unidentifi ed white man who was seen on video slapping a woman at Crocheron Park’s parking
lot before the pro-police march in Bayside.
/WWW.QNS.COM
