4 OCTOBER 15, 2020 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Protesters burn American fl ags during march
against police unions and QAnon in Maspeth
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
AACEVEDO@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@QNS
About 100 people marched from
Bushwick to Maspeth to call for
the abolition of police unions
and to protest QAnon on Tuesday, Oct. 6,
only for the demonstration to abruptly
end when some protesters yanked off
U.S. fl ags from private homes and set
them on fi re.
The march was scheduled to take off
from the Jeff erson L train station, but
protesters soon realized the stop was
being skipped with no notice, while police
barricaded the exits and entrances
around the time the demonstration was
scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.
Neither the NYPD nor the MTA have
responded to QNS’ request for comment
by press time.
Protesters gathered at the same stop
by walking from the nearest stop.
While they waited to begin, two
police offi cers without masks were
seen approaching a pickup truck with
the group, telling the driver to get off
the vehicle.
When the driver asked why, one
police offi cer — who told other masked
protesters recording the exchange and
asking where their masks were to back
up — could be heard saying that they
could either “get a summons or go to
jail, pick one.”
The driver picked the summons and
followed the police, who wrote them up
for having their door “slightly open.”
A few moments later, the march began
up Flushing Avenue. Throughout
the route, marchers chanted “Everywhere
we go, people wanna know, who
we are, so we tell them, Black lives
matter” and “Who is this for? Jonathan
Price.”
Jonathan Price was shot by a Texas
police offi cer in a gas station while he
was walking away on Saturday, Oct. 3,
according to the New York Times. The
31-year-old intervened between a man
assaulting a woman before the police
offi cer, Shaun Lucas, fi red a taser then
his gun at him, according to Price’s
family lawyer. Lucas has been charged
with murder, but his attorney recently
claimed his actions were justifi ed, according
to USA Today.
Tuesday’s protest is the latest in
a series of actions in the last few
months calling for police unions to
be dismantled. In August, protesters
marched toward the Bayside home of
Pat Lynch, the president of the Police
Benevolent Association (PBA).
This time, protesters marched in
the residential neighborhoods where
they claimed Ed Mullins, president of
the Sergeants Benevolent Association
(SBA), has property, to call on him and
Lynch to resign.
Protesters said police unions “aren’t
actual unions;” they “enable and are
complicit in the rise of violent white
nationalism.”
One protester also mentioned Mullins’
recent appearance on Fox News,
where a QAnon mug was visible on his
right. QAnon is a far-right conspiracy
theory, which claims the world is run
by a Satanic cabal of child-abusing
elites intent on ousting President
Donald Trump, according to Business
Insider.
Mullins has denied comment on the
mug and whether it was his.
“This is what happens when you run
the cops like they’re a political organization,”
one protester said through a
megaphone when the march stopped
in a residential area of Maspeth. “This
is what happens when you have a f——
QAnon mug in your Zoom background,
Ed. What happened to white people?
I’m not white, it’s not a rhetorical question,
what happened to white people?
Where did they come from? What do
they want? Where are they going?
Answer that question with another
question, what came fi rst, slavery or
racism?”
Throughout the march, more than
seven police cars and unmarked vehicles
trailed behind the protesters.
On the way, another protester called
out local Councilman Robert Holden
for voting against the 2021 fi scal budget
that called for a $1 billion cut of
the NYPD’s $6 billion budget. Recent
Photos by Dean Moses
reports state the cut protesters called
for was not actually instated.
Once it became darker, protesters
became more agitated. Some of them
began yanking U.S. fl ags and fl ag poles
off of residential homes then spray
painting them with words like “stolen
land.”
Once residents began hearing the
audible cracks and snaps from their
U.S. fl ags, some began coming out of
their homes shouting at the protesters
for stealing their fl ags.
A fi ght between residents and protesters
almost broke out, but police on
bikes and other protesters called on the
group to leave. One protester shouted,
“go home” to one resident who shouted
back from his porch, “I am home. Why
don’t you go where you came from, you
goddamn idiot?”
Protesters then put the fl ags in a pile
and set them on fi re.
Police on bikes then swooped in
before the fi re grew too large, causing
protesters to disburse at about 8:30 p.m.
No arrests were made.
A day after the protest, Holden
took to Twitter to address the night’s
events.
“I will not allow anti-police rioters to
steal and burn the fl ags we proudly display
in front of the homes we worked
so hard to own. I proudly support the
NYPD and will continue to fi ght for
public safety and the quality of life in
our district,” he wrote.
Additional reporting by Dean Moses.
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