Trans & queer New Yorkers faced brutal use of force by police near Stonewall. The mayor “doesn’t know anything.”

“This was NYPD’s planned attack against a Black trans organizer,” ACT-UP NY member Jason Rosenberg tweeted. “I have no doubt.”

“I didn’t hear about [Rivera’s arrest] until I got to the end, at Union Square,” Aaron says. Attendees that made it to the square’s park were met with “hundreds” of police officers. Once a water bottle was thrown, people were ordered to disperse from here – but the police officers were surrounding them, forcing them “deeper” into the park instead of allowing them to leave.

“We kept running into intersections where the cops would then block us from going and we would have to like peel off or go [further] in or whatever,” Aaron describes it here.

This tactic, known as “kettling,” has become common tactic for law enforcement across the country in attempts to escalate peaceful protests, and deter protestors from returning.

Once arrests started, Public Advocate Williams made his presence clear. He “urged the police to remain calm,” reports say, but videos show the NYPD ignoring him and continuing to use their array of weapons and bicycles to make attendees “disperse”, even those that seem to try to follow their directions.

Officers eventually turn and shove Williams with bikes, as onlookers scream “Oh my God” and “stop.” One person is heard in a video apparently says to officers, “do you even know who this is?”

“NYPD was trying to clear the street to make an arrest. Aggressively. Officers then appeared to begin setting up for mass arrests — we intervened to try and de-escalate and prevent that,” Williams wrote on Twitter. In an apparent jab at Mayor Bill de Blasio, he also wrote that “most importantly, there seems to be a lack of leadership when the City needs it the most.”

Members of the press – included those credentialed to be present at events by the NYPD themselves – were not safe either. Roger Stern, a reporter for radio station 1010 WINS, wrote online that he was “knocked to the ground” and he “did not understand why officers charged a peaceful demonstration.”

At least 19 other attendees were booked by the police that night, eight receiving summonses and ten with desk appearance tickets. The NYPD alleged on Twitter that one of their officers was “pushed to the ground & had this chain pressed against his throat,” attaching an accompanying picture. They charged a 30 year old man with prior penal history with the assault, the only criminal charge to arise from that night’s events.

Still, people believe the NYPD is causing the violence, leading to attacks on both sides.

Tiffany Cabán, an attorney who identifies as queer and a candidate for New York City Council, wrote in a statement that “We again witnessed the NYPD brutalize people who were practicing their Constitutional right to protest in defense of Black lives and in defense of our democracy,” Cabán said.

“We saw the NYPD accost and assault our public advocate, Jumaane Williams. The public advocate is the second-most powerful position in the City, and is meant to be a check on the mayor, who is supposed to be in charge of, and, a check on, the NYPD. The police did not care,” she charged.

At other events throughout the week, the NYPD were criticized for increased use of kettling – blasting recorded orders to disperse via speakers, then surrounding those who remain and not allowing them to leave, whilst continuously ordering them to do so and then arresting them when they don’t.

Since the election, and as it became clearer that Joe Biden would win the election for President, the NYPD continued to target and disperse protests or celebrations.  25 were arrested and at least 32 were given summons at a protest in the West Village area of downtown Manhattan just the day before the Stonewall rally.

The New York Times called this “a reprise” of the anti-protest brutality that the NYPD exhibited this summer.

This follows a series of events where police officers intimidated residents of the city or expressed hateful rhetoric. Most recently, an officer was suspended for repeatedly taunting Flatbush residents with “Trump 2020” and other pro-Trump messages, while on-duty, from a NYPD vehicle.

The Police Benevolent Association (PBA) union, which represents the entire police force en masse, endorsed Donald Trump for President. The Sergeant’s Benevolent Association (SBA), which represents thousands of the department’s supervisory officers, even called out politician and Congressman-to-be Ritchie Torres a “first class whore.”

James Kobel, the deputy inspector in charge of the NYPD Office of Equal Employment, was found to have disparaged Black people, Jewish people, LGBTQ people and women for more than a year using a pseudonym online for years. He “mocked [Williams] for having Tourette’s syndrome” and called Mayor de Blasio’s son, Dante, who is Black and is known to have an afro, a “brillohead.”

“It’s so unfortunate that 50-plus years since the Stonewall Riots…It is very ironic how it’s the same situation, the same disease that’s still going on,” Rivera said in an interview after her arrest. “It is scary to have to do this, but it is very necessary. We go home and we cry, we feel so [many] emotions.”

When asked about police violence this week on a regular radio appearance, Mayor de Blasio said he “didn’t have any information on that” despite Public Advocate Williams’ presence – in addition to his own press secretary’s attendance at a protest the night before. When pressed by a caller, he would only say that “if people feel” that there is “militarism” coming from the NYPD, he would step in.

Aaron believes that despite the struggle with police, the group attending the event “stayed tight, they kept it together,” and credits Qween for “pull[ing] everyone together.”

“We will not allow them to change the narrative,” Qween said to to the crowd earlier that night. “We will not allow [police] to say we were attacking them. We will not give [police] any reason to open fire on a group of family, of unarmed Americans.”

Actual Story on LGBTQ Nation
Author: Juwan J. Holmes