OAG Hearing on Interactions Between NYPD and the General Public Submitted Written Testimony Tahanie Aboushi | New York, New York I am counsel for Dounya Zayer, the protestor who was violently shoved by officer D’Andraia and observed by Commander Edelman. I would like to appear with Dounya to testify at this hearing and I will submit written testimony at a later time but well before the June 15th deadline. Thank you. Marissa Abrahams | South Beach Psychiatric Center | Brooklyn, New York As a nurse, it has been disturbing to see first-hand how few NYPD officers (present en masse at ALL peaceful protests) are wearing the face masks that we know are preventing the spread of COVID-19. Demonstrators are taking this extremely seriously and I saw NYPD literally laugh in the face of a protester who asked why they do not. It is negligent and a blatant provocation -especially in the context of the over-policing of Black and Latinx communities for social distancing violations. The complete disregard of the NYPD for the safety of the people they purportedly protect and serve, the active attacks with tear gas and pepper spray in the midst of a respiratory pandemic, is appalling and unacceptable. Aaron Abrams | Brooklyn, New York I will try to keep these testimonies as precise as possible since I know your office likely has hundreds, if not thousands to go through. Three separate occasions highlighted below: First Incident - May 30th - Brooklyn - peaceful protestors were walking from Prospect Park through the streets early in the day. At one point, police stopped to block the street and asked that we back up. In compliance we began to back up. I had my bike so walking backwards is a bit more of a task against a crowd. The officer (Officer Campos - did not get the badge #) saw me walking backwards with the bike and proceeded to yell “”keep moving!”” and began to shove me with his baton. I stated “”I’m moving back, I have a bike”” to which his response was to shove me over my bike as others around me started to yell at him and record. I was not injured and didn’t want to incite anything so I told them I was fine, but he gave me a stare like he was just waiting for something to happen so he could take a swing. The action was completely unprovoked verbally, physically, etc. and is completely unacceptable for someone in a position of authority, especially because I was in complete compliance. This is just the beginning of the highly aggressive atmosphere I have experienced throughout recent protests. Many of these microagressions proceeded throughout the protest as I saw officers shove people while walking for no reason. Later in the day we began to walk to the Manhattan bridge, in what is now somewhat of an infamous video of an office charging their car into a crowd of protestors. I was actually right there as you can see me enter screen from the OAG Hearing on Interactions Between NYPD and the General Public | Submitted Written Testimony 1 upper right hand corner at the 9 second mark in a blue shirt. The claims that there were dangerous objects being thrown at the car were completely unfounded and the acceleration in the crowd was shocking. Once this happened, a group swarmed the car and the officer got out. Knowing that this was a dangerous and highly charged situation, a group of protestors escorted the officers safely away from the car and made sure they were safe from attack. It did not seem like the officers shared that same humanity in speeding a car over a rather large group of protestors. Second Incident - June 3 - Cadman Plaza - This event was highly covered by multiple media outlets, and my experience that night is very similar to what has been documented so far. I got to the protest a bit late as the group approached the Brooklyn Bridge. it was obvious that the police were not going to let us cross the bridge so it became a stagnant protest of people gathered in the plaza letting our voices be heard with the typical protest call and response. After about 20 minutes, the police began to close in more and more and someone pointed out that they were surrounding us on all sides, essentially “”Ketteling”” us. The chant “”hands up, don’t shoot”” began as it seemed tensions were high at the front line of the protest and you could see officers losing their patience. Initially they started to shove the frontline back, you could hear some people screaming because they did not know what was happening, but it eventually subsided. They were compacting us and surrounding us more so there was no real option to leave even if you wanted. After a few more minutes, someone must have given the order, but they all started yelling “”move back!”” aggressively and shoving everyone with their batons. at this point I had 2 different officers shoving and yelling at me as I wad moving back. I even started yelling “”I’m going!”” and they proceeded to shove me into other officers who then shoved me into other protestors like a human pinball. This was happening all around as it escalated to officers starting to push some of the smaller protestors over and hit them with batons. I’ve seen the videos of people being trampled on Black Friday and was terrified this was going to happen to some of the smaller people I saw on the ground as the crowd was pushed further and further. I went to help one of the protestors up from this and and suddenly I was hit in the back with batons and one officer grabbed my backpack and threw me directly into the pavement. In the moment I had adrenaline and didn’t feel it as much, but this shove caused me to tear my meniscus. I quickly got up as I heard someone say they should put me in cuffs. I looked back and yelled “”I was just trying to help him!”” and the other officers almost just snarled. I looked at one of the police captains and he looked back at me like he knew he had let his dogs of the leash and there was nothing he can do now and he told me “”just go!”” You could tell there were some officers there that wanted no part of this, but also you could tell there were just as many who had been waiting of this all night. All-in-all, there have been a number of microagressions and threats made from the side of those who are supposed to “”keep the peace”” in the last 2 weeks of protesting. Some I was not in the middle of enough to give full context, some not as appalling, but these were the most egregious oversteps of authority I think that need to be checked.” Jose Abreu | New York, New York In my experience as a peaceful protester, 4 different times I witnessed riot police chasing after someone who had thrown a water bottle. Halfway through their chase, the police would give up, and instead lunge at ME, the next closest person. I had not committed any crimes. I was just present at the protest. How is this protecting and serving the community? Ernest Anwuri | Carson, California https://twitter.com/jimrockford9/status/1272210787210113026?s=19 Marc Atkinson Borrull | Brooklyn, New York I would like to add my testimony regarding the widely shared video of Police cars driving through a group of protestors on Flatbush Avenue and St. Mark’s Place. I live on that block and witnessed the event from my apartment. Contrary to what they Mayor and other officials suggested, the police cars were not surrounded. There was plenty of space behind them OAG Hearing on Interactions Between NYPD and the General Public | Submitted Written Testimony 2 which they could have reversed into, and then turned down Prospect Place, as many other police cars were doing at the time. Despite these options, I witnessed these particular cars decide to drive into the crowd. Derek Baron | Brooklyn, New York I was arrested in Mott Haven in the Bronx on June 4th along with a couple hundred people protesting police brutality. Before curfew, a heavily armored NYPD Strategic Response Group kettled us in on 136th. Since we were kettled there was no way for any of us to leave or disperse, and a few minutes before 8pm the police started pulling us from the crowd and beating us, throwing us onto the pavement and handcuffing us. I was close to the front of the group of protesters and the police started from the back, so by the time they got up to me, they were literally crushing us between their bikes on one side and their riot shields on the other. I heard a woman’s leg snap a few feet away from me and people crying out for a medic. People were screaming that we had nowhere to go and the police were crushing us for no reason at all. If they had wanted to arrest all of us for breaking curfew they could have done so easily and in an orderly way with no violence, but they seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to crush and beat us. I was thrown onto the street, crushing my glasses and losing my PPE in the process. An officer put his knee on my neck while another officer handcuffed me with zip-ties.