By Jonathan Allen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New York Police Department used excessive force during the wave of demonstrations across the city this summer protesting police brutality and racism, according to a report published on Friday morning by New York City’s Department of Investigation.
Mayor Bill de Blasio asked for the investigation in May as social media became deluged with cellphone videos showing police officers dousing protesters, elected officials and journalists with chemical irritants, hitting them while they struggled on the ground or, in one instance, driving police vehicles into them.
The report said the NYPD’s response was excessive in part because most police officers involved had not received “relevant training” in policing protests.
“The NYPD’s use of force and certain crowd control tactics to respond to the Floyd protests produced excessive enforcement that contributed to heightened tensions,” the Department of Investigation said in the executive summary of its 111-page report.
The daily New York City protests were a prominent part of what quickly became a nationwide and international movement prompted in part by anger over George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer, and Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed in her Louisville home by white police officers during a botched raid.
De Blasio, who repeatedly defended his police department’s conduct during the protests, said he agreed with the report’s findings.
“It makes very clear we’ve got to do something different, and we’ve got to do something better,” he said in a video statement released by City Hall.
The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
