Ever since George Floyd died at the hands of a police officer, there have been more and more protests breaking out in the United States. On Saturday 30th May, several thousand protesters gathered in the Brooklyn neighbourhood in New York and the events were nearly catastrophic.
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As several videos that were later posted on social media show, one police car was stopped by a barrier and protesters, some of whom then proceeded to launch objects at the police vehicle. This triggered another police car to intervene by deliberately driving into the middle of the crowd and immediately, cries of horror and dread could be heard. This footage, which you can find in the video above, was obviously very controversial on social media.
Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, quickly reacted:
I'm not gonna blame officers who were trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation. The folks who were converging on that police car did the wrong thing to begin with and they created an untenable situation. I wished the officers had found a different approach, but let's begin at the beginning, the protesters in that video did the wrong thing to surround that police car, period.
And internet users did not like this at all, in a tweet, Corey Johnson a New York City Council Speaker stated:
This is outrageous. Driving police vehicles into crowds of protestors is not deescalation. Shoving and beating nonviolent people is not deescalation. If NYPD’s intent is to keep folks safe, this isn’t it.
And like usual, Donald Trump then took to Twitter to express his opinion:
Let New York’s Finest be New York’s Finest. There is nobody better, but they must be allowed to do their job!
CNN has since announced that an investigation has officially been opened.
