By Ilana Siyance
The tragic death of George Floyd has led to even more tragedy, loss and death all around the nation. In NY, close to 300 of New York’s finest have been injured during the ongoing protests. As reported by the NY Post, 292 NYPD officers have been hurt in violent clashes that erupted during demonstrations, police said.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea called for an end to violence against officers. “Violence has been used multiple times during what could have been and what should have been peaceful protests,” Shea said Thursday night at a live-streamed press conference. “Violence poisons the well of democracy. It has done so at a time when we so desperately need civil discourse about issues that all of us, black, white — all of us that we care so much about.”
The protests should be peaceful, but many times they are not. NYPD police said it seems multiple different groups including Al Qaeda, ISIS, neo-Nazis, other political extremists and hate groups have unified for the goal of opportunistic propaganda to “accelerate conflict, incite violence.”
“What they’re seeking is more disorder, more violence, more mayhem,” said Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller. As reported by NBC, police officials said “there’s been a pretty dramatic escalation in terms of rhetoric and propaganda from these extremist entities” in posting online and on social media trying to use George Floyd protests for their own agendas and to create unrest in the country. “It’s our responsibility and obligation to make sure that we track down which of these propagandists has security implications for the large number of protests in New York City,” police officials said.
As of Saturday, the NYPD said they have made 1,024 protest related arrests and given 1,164 summonses. These numbers do not include curfew violations. Some 467 arrests have been linked specifically to felonies. While the data still needs to be studied before making any inferences, 3.6 percent of those arrested had previous arrests or incidents with law enforcement tied to shootings, homicides, or weapons charges; 6 percent had ties to gangs; and 2.3 percent of those arrested were repeat offenders.
“You have anarchist groups that are actively planning to do destruction and violence against police,” said Miller, explaining that those groups don’t generally loot, but rather break glass, and damage buildings. Then, “You have the looters who have tried to blend with the protesters for cover and then break off with the sole purpose of looting merchandise,” he continued.
