An incident that took place in Brooklyn last weekend involving the NYPD and neighborhood residents has triggered an internal affairs investigation.
According to Animal NY, video footage captured on Sunday shows officers telling vendors in the borough's Sunset Park section that they need to shut down because it's 6 p.m. Then, when the vendors apparently didn't move with the vigor police wanted, violence erupted:
On Sunday at the 5th Avenue festival a group of at least six officers approaches a vendor and tells him to shut down his table. It appears they give him no time and quickly it escalates. A black female police officer says “6′oclock it’s 6 o’clock. You guys know the rules. Simple.”
It then sounds like she says, “If you guys are gonna fuck with us, we’re gonna fuck with you,” and a male officer then starts asking an older woman on the street who she is and how old she is. A younger man in a Cincinatti Reds hat tells the group of women they don’t have to answer that, and the male cop then approaches the young man and soon a confrontation begins.
Cops can be seen punching and kicking the man in the Reds hat and it spirals downward, with people at times trying to fight back against police. Multiple people were shooting with their phones but the video on Facebook is the best footage of the incident.
It remains unclear how many people were arrested, and Animal reports that the NYPD has yet to respond to requests for comment. No details about the investigation have been released, but Animal adds that two local politicians— congresswoman Nydia Velasquez and city councilman Carlos Menchaca— have penned letters to police commissioner Bill Bratton seeking resolution, not just in this instance, but to mend the relationship between the department and the community.
[via Animal NY]
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