A federal civil rights lawsuit claims the protestors in New York City following the death of George Floyd they were met with a “brutal response” that included “the very pattern of police violence they marched to end.” The suit, filed against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea and more than three dozen individual officers, was brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society. It further claims, in part, that officers “descended on protesters with unjustifiable fist and baton strikes, chemical pepper spray attacks, and other acts of physical violence” that left many with “bloody head wounds, concussions, broken bones, and emotional trauma.”
There was no immediate response to the suit from Mayor de Blasio, who disavowed aggressive police tactics at the time of the protests yet largely defended the NYPD response. Several officers were referred for discipline after their behavior was recorded in video. “Trust is critical to effective policing. Trust takes a long time to earn and it is very easy to lose. We will continue to work relentlessly to earn and keep that trust because without community partnership, we cannot effectively do our jobs,” Commissioner Shea said, while also defending his officers’ behavior as a whole.