- Protests continued in New York City this week after the killing of
George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. - Photos taken by Insider show large crowds marching through areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn before and after the 11 p.m. curfew put in place by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo.
- Despite Mayor de Blasio's assertions that the curfew appears to have had a "calming impact," protesters around the city were still subject to police escalation and violence.
- The enforcement of the curfew itself seems to vary, and people who are technically exempt, like essential workers, have still found themselves subject to police action.
NEW YORK CITY — On Monday night, minutes before New York City's first curfew in 75 years, the massive group of protesters occupying both sides of Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn let the
"F— YOUR CURFEW," clap, clap, clap-clap-clap. "F— YOUR CURFEW!"
For hours, the march had moved without incident, as two groups of protesters converged and set off together on a wide loop of central Brooklyn. After turning north, the demonstrators faced off with a line of cops outside the NYPD's 77th Precinct.
For a moment, it seemed as if things would boil over: the thousands-strong crowd was stalled in the middle of the block, their attention diverted to the cops holding the gate to the precinct's parking lot. But the street ahead was open, and organizers at the head of the column tracked back, shouting at the group to keep moving. The crowd cleared and continued its march. The police held their line.
As the group marched up Fulton St., nearing Barclays Center well after the 11 p.m. curfew, people on bikes raced up to the car leading the march, directing protesters to turn south on Vanderbilt, dodging the heavy police presence ahead. "They're waiting for you up there," the leaders yelled. "Turn left, turn left!"
The column turned, eventually ending up in Grand Army Plaza, where it marched on. I walked home past a deserted Barclays Center, vacant save for a few remaining police.
The curfew, a sudden order passed down through the contentious grapevine between the offices of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, does not appear to be a hard and fast rule.
This week, the city's police force has used it as a tool to oppose and harass individual protesters when they find themselves in vulnerable positions, while allowing many — though not all — large marches to proceed unimpeded well past the cutoff.
It's also been used to limit movement within Manhattan, which saw widespread and relatively unchecked looting on Sunday and Monday nights as police focused their efforts on violently opposing protesters in different parts of the city. On Monday, the first night of the curfew, police milled around midtown while looters smashed up businesses just blocks away, before and after the curfew's imposition.
An earlier curfew fails to keep people in
On Tuesday, Mayor de Blasio moved up the city-wide curfew to 8 pm, setting up further confrontations with large demonstrations planned for 6 and 7 pm around the city. In Manhattan, protesters started in Bryant Park after the remnants of an earlier event marched up 5th Ave.
"I mean, the curfew only exists to pander to this whole system that Trump has created," said Carine Green, a student at SUNY Stonybrook, who said they wouldn't be respecting the decree.
"So many people are dying, and there's no justice," they said. "For me, as someone who's experienced a family member dying to police violence, I know how that feels. I don't want other people to keep knowing how that feels."
Unlike the chaotic early days of protests, the NYPD's marching orders appear to have changed. Protesters are now allowed to "take the street," a tactic that the NYPD has permitted in the past as it keeps large numbers of marchers moving, reducing the chance of violent confrontations.
On Friday and Saturday night, on the other hand, the NYPD forced huge crowds into confined spaces and antagonized them with pepper spray until tension boiled over. (The NYPD did not respond to Insider's queries on the police's directives on handing protests.)
Tuesday's march through Manhattan was led by Black Lives Matter's Greater New York president Nupol Kiazolu. Her organizers led chants of "We Are Non-Violent" and "We Are Organized" before beginning to march, setting the pace of the column with a moving rope line in front. The only moment of tension was at a police barricade on 5th Ave. and 56th St., where a combination of NYPD and Secret Service agents stopped the protest from walking past Trump Tower. After a few nervous moments, the protest backed up, peacefully dispersing at 55th St.
Lower down on the island on Tuesday, the streets were quiet. The curfew, with its ban on vehicle traffic below 96th St., appears to have curbed the looting in the city's affluent shopping districts. But it also gave the police a new justification for impeding peaceful protests and further harassing already over-policed communities. In the Bronx, for instance, police started harassing teenagers as soon as the curfew hit, making several arrests.
Back in central Brooklyn, a group of protesters split from the crowd at Barclays and marched onto the Manhattan Bridge, evading a line of riot police by using an on-ramp, according to Noah Hurowitz, a reporter traveling with the group.
The NYPD reportedly told marchers they would be allowed to exit the bridge on the Manhattan side, but when they arrived, they were confronted by a massive line of police and barricades halting their progress, citing the curfew. The confrontation touched off an hour-long standoff that attracted the attention of several elected representatives, including US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Meanwhile, De Blasio visited Barclays Center and declared that all was well.
New York's curfews — like those leveled in Los Angeles and Washington DC — serve mostly to empower the police with a legal justification for making arrests. But they've also wreaked havoc on essential workers, who are technically exempt from the order but are still being targeted by police action. Protesters in large numbers will be largely left alone as long as they keep moving, like the column I followed on Monday night.
But if they go through an exposed or isolated area, like crossing a bridge with only two exits, the NYPD has the ability to corral them off. After an hour of negotiating, the protesters on the bridge were allowed to cross back to Brooklyn and exit peacefully, but the NYPD's decision to block them from entering Manhattan clearly created many of the same risks as the confinement strategies on Friday and Saturday night did: too many angry people in a tight place and one side with all the weaponry.
On Wednesday night, the police force kept the bridges locked down, but began to crack down even harder on smaller groups of protesters as larger marches broke down. Gothamist reported that 60 people were arrested on the Upper East Side following a protest at Gracie Manor.
At the corner of 50th St. and 3rd Ave., cops started picking off protesters clearly trying to disperse, assaulting one bicyclist with batons in a video captured by a driver stopped in traffic.
—#BLACKLIVESMATTER ✊️ (@tommiesunshine) June 4, 2020
That night, as his police force continued to round up protesters in central Brooklyn, de Blasio called in to a special roundtable on local station WBLS. "The curfew is working, in a lot of ways," de Blasio said. "So far it seems like it's having a calming impact, and it's allowing things to get back to a better place. There is protest out there, but it is consistently peaceful."
Jack Crosbie is a writer and photographer who covers politics and culture.
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