Protesters vandalize Central Park monument and clash with police
Protesters clashed with police in Manhattan on Thursday night after a monument was vandalized by cop-haters in Central Park.
Six people were arrested in Columbus Circle near the USS Maine National Monument, which was defaced with anti-police graffiti, cops said.
“ACAB,” an acronym for “All cops are bastards,” and “F–k 12,” which means “F–k the police,” were spray-painted on the monument.
“Stonewall was a riot,” was also written in pink spray paint.
A handful of protesters climbed the monument, which sits at the entrance of Central Park, and waved flags, video posted on Twitter shows. Some of the paint was splattered to resemble blood.
“It turns out people are looking for a black woman in a red dress who threw some paint,” a person on a megaphone tells the crowd.
The crowd was part of the Stonewall Protests, which gathers weekly outside the iconic Greenwich Village bar
The group describes itself as “black queer and black trans activists centered on the acknowledgement of all black life” on Instagram.
Videos from Thursday night showed at least a hundred protesters shoving a swarm of cops as the officers attempted to make arrests. Some of the demonstrators shouted at them, “Disgrace!” and “What is wrong with you?”
One person who was arrested was apparently trying to flee in a cab before cops surrounded the vehicle and were blocked by a throng of protesters.
Armed with Black Lives Matter banners, the group marched from Christopher Street up Eighth Avenue — and vandalized a bus with black spray paint and also defaced the outside of a restaurant, police told CBS New York.
At one point, they also stopped outside the New York Times building in Times Square, shouting, “F–k the New York Times!” to the beat of a drum.
The NYPD condemned the statue vandalism in a social media post.
“We respect everyone’s right to peacefully protest, but vandalism is not part of peaceful protest,” the department wrote on Twitter.
Those arrested are facing assault and damage to public property charges, according to a tweet from NYPD Manhattan South.
Police did not have any other information available early Friday.
The protest was also followed by the left-wing Twitter account Protest NYC, which notedthat somewhere between 250 and 300 protesters marched from the Stonewall Inn amid a “heavy police presence.”
“After a night of peaceful protesting, NYPD waited for most protesters to leave, and then swarmed those remaining on the sidewalk,” the group tweeted. “Police targeted organizers. Multiple arrests made.”
Dedicated in 1913, the USS Maine National Monument honors the 260 American sailors of the USS Maine, which sank off Havana, Cuba, in 1868, according to the Central Park Conservancy. It is located on West 59th Street.
Americans blamed the Spanish for sinking the ship — helping to spark the Spanish-American War, which lasted for eight months.
The melee in Manhattan comes on the heels of a tumultuous moment in the country related to police-involved shootings. Ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin was found guilty Tuesday — just as police fatally shot 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio.
Meanwhile, the funeral for Daunte Wright, who was shot and killed by an officer who mistook her gun for her Taser, was held Thursday.
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