‘Wrong time and wrong place’: NYC Mayor de Blasio finds the controversial arrest of protester ‘troubling'
Mayor de Blasio denounced NYPD tactics in the dramatic Tuesday night arrest of a protester in Manhattan, but shied away from promising to hold any officers involved in the incident accountable.
“I think it was the wrong time and the wrong place to effectuate that arrest,” Hizzoner said at a press conference.
Police arrested a skateboard-riding Black Lives Matter protester — hustling her into an unmarked van in tactics reminiscent of recent scenes in Portland — shocking fellow demonstrators and prominent elected officials.
The NYPD said the protester, identified as a transgender woman named Nikki by other demonstrators, was wanted for “damaging police cameras during five separate criminal incidents in and around City Hall Park.”
De Blasio agreed that the arrest evoked recent incidents in Oregon of camo-clad federal agents taking protesters and hustling them into unmarked vehicles.
“Anything that even slightly suggest that is, to me, troubling and it’s the kind of thing we don’t want to see in this city,” the mayor said. “This is not Portland.”
He promised to discuss the incident with NYC Police Commissioner Dermot Shea but said he had no plans to discipline officers who made the arrest.
It drew condemnation from prominent New York pols including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
“Our civil liberties are on brink,” the Dem tweeted Tuesday night. “There is no excuse for snatching women off the street and throwing them into unmarked vans.”
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