Looting and violence continues in New York City despite unprecedented curfew
An unprecedented curfew in New York City on Monday night did little to prevent destruction, as people smashed their way into shops including Macy’s flagship store, grabbed merchandise and fled.
Police said more than 200 were arrested and several officers were injured, following another day of peaceful protests throughout the city over the death of George Floyd, an African American man who died on 25 May after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
One officer was struck by a hit-and-run driver in the Bronx and was taken to a hospital in critical condition, police said.
“Some people are out tonight not to protest but to destroy property and hurt others and those people are being arrested,” Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted. “Their actions are unacceptable and we won’t allow them in our city.”
It was the fourth instance in a row of mainly peaceful daytime demonstrations followed by violence and arrests after nightfall.
De Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, both Democrats, announced an 11pm curfew late on Monday afternoon. De Blasio said Tuesday’s curfew would start earlier, beginning at 8pm and ending at 5am.
Roving bands of people struck stores in Manhattan and the Bronx, even though many stores were boarded up pre-emptively as merchants feared more destruction.
Video posted on social media showed piles of rubbish on fire on a debris-strewn street and people smashing into stores. Another video showed a group of men hitting a police officer with pieces of wreckage until he pulled his gun and they ran.
People rushed into a Nike store and carried out armloads of clothing. Store windows were smashed near Rockefeller Center.
The violence threatened to overshadow anger over the death of Floyd.
On Monday, a federal judge agreed to release on bail two lawyers accused of throwing a molotov cocktail into a police van during protests in Manhattan on Friday.
Urooj Rahman, 31, and Colinford Mattis, 32, were each released on a $250,000 bond, according to local media reports. They were expected to be confined to their homes as they await trial. Prosecutors had strongly argued against their release on bail.
“We don’t believe this is the time to be releasing a bomb-thrower into the community,” one prosecutor said of Rahman, according to a Pix11 local news report.
Defense lawyers argued that the government was alleging a “property offense” and highlighted the heightened risks of contracting Covid-19 in the Medical Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Rahman, a human rights lawyer who studied at Fordham University School of Law, and Mattis, who works for a Manhattan law firm and was educated at Princeton, were charged with causing damage to a police vehicle by throwing a homemade incendiary device into an empty NYPD van outside the 88th precinct.
Some police officers in New York City and around the nation have sought to show solidarity with demonstrators while urging calm.
New York City’s highest-ranking uniformed member, Chief of Department Terence Monahan, clasped hands with protesters and kneeled on Monday in Washington Square Park, in Manhattan.
“The people who live in New York want New York to end the violence,” Monahan said.
