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How 2021 Mayoral Candidates Have Responded to the Coronavirus Fallout and Cries for Police Reform


New York City Hall mayoral race coronavirus

New York City Hall (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor's Office)


New York City has slowly turned the tide of the COVID-19 pandemic and has just begun the first phase of reopening its economy. But despite the last few weeks of success in curtailing the public health crisis, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s leadership has left many frustrated and looking elsewhere. He has been criticized for providing too little clarity and few plans to the public about various health, social, and economic pieces of the city’s larger recovery puzzle, often proving reactive rather than proactive and being outpaced by other officials.

And the second-term, term-limited Democratic mayor’s struggles have been additionally apparent when it comes to the recent protests against police brutality, during which he imposed a much-opposed curfew and appeared largely satisfied as NYPD officers used harsh, often violent, tactics to disrupt the demonstrations, which have been largely peaceful.

As de Blasio has faltered in handling both crises, alternative approaches have been offered by those seeking to replace him when his term is up at the end of next year. Contenders to be the next mayor, particularly those who currently hold elected office, have sought to fill the leadership gap, seizing on mayoral missteps and crafting their own images of resolve amid crisis.

There are several Democrats who have declared a run for mayor in 2021, and with Democratic voters outnumbering Republican voters seven-to-one, the winner of the June 2021 primary election is likely to go on to win the general next November. The declared and exploring candidates include City Council Speaker Corey Johnson; Comptroller Scott Stringer; Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams; Loree Sutton, a retired Army Brigadier General and former commissioner of the city’s Department of Veterans’ Services; Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive; and Shaun Donovan, a former high-level aide to President Barack Obama and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Coronavirus Crisis
Besides making regular television and radio appearances, Johnson, Stringer, and Adams have each been playing their respective roles in government during this crisis, while also staying true to their personal styles, and to varying extents hosting and attending virtual town halls, roundtables, and face-mask and food distribution events.

As Speaker of the Council, Johnson has been leading budget negotiations with the de Blasio administration for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, while also ushering through legislation aimed at providing relief to city residents and businesses.

Johnson has questioned the mayor’s priorities in planned funding cuts from education, youth employment, and after-school programs as the city faces a $9 billion budget gap by the end of the next fiscal year. In particular, the speaker and his colleagues have called for between 5-7% of savings at each agency that has not been included in the mayor’s Program to Eliminate the Gap (PEG).

Besides holding budget hearings specific to city agencies, in April the Council introduced a package of 11 crisis-relief bills. They included worker protections, pay bonuses for hourly workers, fines against landlords, expansion of paid leave to independent contractors, and providing homeless people with hotel rooms, among other things.

The Council has since passed four of those bills – providing a waiver and refund of sidewalk cafe fees; preventing landlord harassment based on a person having been impacted by COVID-19; similarly preventing harassment of commercial tenants; and prohibiting the enforcement of personal liability clauses in commercial leases.

Several other pieces of legislation have also been approved that, though not included in the package, deal with issues arising from the pandemic. They include additional reporting on the city’s contact-tracing program, reporting on health conditions in correctional facilities and limits on fees charged by third-party food-delivery apps.

Johnson and the Council have also been scrutinizing the mayor’s response to the pandemic, criticizing racial disparities in NYPD enforcement for social distancing violations and pushing the administration to release more data on enforcement. The Council also held an oversight hearing in May to examine how the administration handled the first months of the crisis.

In May, when the state allowed beaches to reopen but, in an apparent attempt to avoid crowding, de Blasio refused to allow swimming at city beaches, Johnson and the Council offered their own alternative ten-point beach plan. The Council’s plan, released two days after Stringer presented a beach and pool plan of his own, would allow swimming, let beach-adjacent restaurants reopen, provide lifeguards with personal protective equipment, and increase transit options, among other measures. But weeks later nothing has moved on the beach front.

In preparation for phase 2 of the city’s reopening, which could happen as soon as June 22, and as the mayor again moved slowly, the Council also took the lead on expanding outdoor dining space and easing the permitting process for sidewalk cafes. A bill was introduced by Johnson and Council Member Antonio Reynoso and was heard before the Council days before the de Blasio administration released its own plan for outdoor dining.   

Stringer, in his role as the city’s chief fiscal officer, has continued to audit city agencies with a particular eye on issues related to the pandemic.

In early April, Stringer called on the mayor to release demographic data on the impact of COVID-19, as it increasingly became apparent that low-income New Yorkers of color were more likely to die from the novel coronavirus. He later pushed for a release of antibody data as well to glean more clarity on the impact in those communities.

He launched an online workshop series to inform small businesses and minority- and women-owned businesses about financial resources to help them survive the crisis.

Stringer has also been hitting the administration hard on its budgetary decisions, particularly those impacting nonprofit providers that are contracted by the city.

Focusing on the adverse consequences the pandemic has had on the city’s most vulnerable populations, Stringer released a report with a slew of recommended measures to house homeless people, expand public space in overcrowded communities, provide PPE to landlords and building service workers, expand support for remote learning, expand access to public benefits, and more. He has also called for the creation of a federal COVID-19 Victims Fund to provide benefits to the families of frontline workers.

In mid-May, Stringer also launched an investigation into the administration’s preparedness and response to the pandemic. “Every single New Yorker deserves to know what City government did to prepare and prevent the worst,” he said in a statement at the time.. “All New Yorkers have been touched by the devastating fallout of COVID-19. As the City’s independent fiscal and oversight officer, I am determined to examine what we knew, when we knew it, and what we did about it.”

Stringer proposed his plan for reopening city beaches and pools ahead of Memorial Day, recommending capacity limits, reservations through lotteries, and reduced access to facilities where people would be in close quarters, among other things. (Johnson's plan included a transit element that Stringer's did not.)

Stringer also weighed in on the NYPD’s social distancing enforcement, noting in an analysis of 311 calls that a greater share of enforcement was occurring in low-income communities of color.

Borough President Adams has been heading up his response to the pandemic from Borough Hall, where he has been living for the last two months, and taking a much more on-the-ground approach than his competitors. He has been raising donations to purchase personal protective equipment, delivering food and PPE across the borough, and even supporting local Census outreach efforts. 

As a former NYPD officer, Adams has taken a “first responder” type approach, he has said, but has also drawn on his experience to criticize the police department’s social distancing enforcement, which he noted, as did many others, was reminiscent of other NYPD tactics that disproportionately target people of color. “This is a moment of ‘re-culturing,’” he said, calling for the NYPD to be removed from the role, which de Blasio soon did, publicly giving credit to Adams and two other Brooklyn elected officials, Assemblymember Tremaine Wright and Rep. Yvette Clarke, for swaying his thinking.

In May, when it emerged that a new COVID-related inflammatory syndrome was affecting children, Adams called on the Department of Education to spread awareness to parents through remote teaching. 

The borough president has been doing his part to boost local charitable efforts and to help people and businesses suffering during the pandemic. He partnered with actor Jeffrey Wright and the Brooklyn for Life campaign to raise funds for small businesses feeding first responders. His office is also collaborating with Fresh Direct to deliver food to people who need it across Brooklyn. He even offered to be a co-applicant for restaurants that are seeking rezonings that would make them eligible for sidewalk cafe licenses.

He regularly hosts virtual meditation events, held a blood drive with the New York Blood Center, launched an online dance series with the Dwana Smallwood Performing Arts Center to promote health and wellness, and has hosted several virtual vigils for Brooklynites killed by COVID-19.

As the city tries to feed hundreds of thousands of hungry New Yorkers, with a target of more than a million free meals each day, Adams introduced legislation with City Council Member Ben Kallos that would mandate nutritional standards for city-funded meals and snacks.

With Council Member Mark Treyger, Adams also released a “Brooklyn Beaches plan” that would allow New Yorkers to use the city’s beaches while following strict social distancing rules. He also hosted a socially-distanced guided-meditation for veterans and first responders at Coney Island Beach.

As the mayor dithered on providing a plan for mass transit once the city reopens, Adams joined with three other borough presidents and transit advocates to call on him to expand bus lanes and alternative modes of transportation.

The three other candidates have understandably had a less visible presence considering they work outside of government.

Once the pandemic hit, Dianne Morales largely gave up campaigning and has been working with Bed-Stuy Strong, a mutual aid network that sprung up to help the residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Central Brooklyn. Morales has revamped her campaign towards community resources, reaching out to supporters not for their votes but to conduct wellness checks and provide aid where it’s required.

In more recent days and weeks, she’s resumed some campaign-focused activities, holding digital sessions to discuss her vision for the city.

Loree Sutton similarly abandoned campaigning and has been working to help set up care services for military veterans. Throughout April, she posted almost daily 2-minute videos on her campaign’s YouTube page and Twitter feed, speaking “1 on 1” on the issues of the day and providing words of reassurance as the city continued to deal with the pandemic. Drawing inspiration from Project Liberty, the combined public health response program after 9/11, she announced a campaign for “Project Grit,” which she said would be grounded in “growth, resilience, integrity and teamwork.”

Rick Fromberg, a senior advisor to Shaun Donovan, said in an email, “During these ongoing months of crisis, Shaun's focus has been on supporting the communities most disproportionately impacted by COVID and police brutality. Shaun has brought his expertise in confronting crises--honed by working with President Obama to address the housing crash, Hurricane Sandy rebuild, and ebola--to his efforts to provide food to underserved populations and his outreach to leaders of struggling communities across the city. That is why New York City and national leaders have sought his counsel to help shape funding and programs here and across the nation. As voters tune into the race, they will see clearly that Shaun is the potential candidate who has an unprecedented track record of bringing people together to get things done and rebuild stronger in the wake of crisis.”

Protests Against Police Brutality and Racism
If there was any initial reluctance from the candidates to criticize the mayor amidst the COVID-19 crisis, that has since evaporated as they have taken stock of his response to the protests ignited by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Almost all the candidates have publicly called out the mayor for his lack of leadership and for allowing the NYPD to run roughshod over the rights of protesters.

During initial nights of protest, which also saw some store looting and attacks on police officers and vehicles, both Stringer and Johnson took to social media to question de Blasio’s leadership, asking “Where’s the mayor?”

The NYPD’s severe crackdown on protests has prompted broad calls for reform and to cut funding from the department’s $6 billion budget and reinvest the funds into communities of color. Elected officials have also pushed for repealing Section 50-a of the state civil rights code which shields police officers’ disciplinary records from the public. De Blasio has supported significantly amending the law, but stopped short of advocating the full repeal that is happening in Albany this week, arguing that officers’ personal information, like home address, should continue to be kept from the public.

Adams has been a prominent critic of the NYPD in the last week. The borough president, who was arrested and beaten by police when he was 15 years old before going on to a 22-year career in the police department, has been making regular media appearances to push for greater accountability and transparency within the NYPD, though he is often sympathetic to police officers as well. Adams marched with Black Lives Matters protesters last week and has called for cutting the NYPD budget, and significantly boosting implicit bias training and de-escalation training for officers.

Stringer’s and Johnson’s response to the protests and the NYPD’s actions have been similar. Even before the protests began, the City Council had been calling for cuts to NYPD funding, noting that the mayor’s latest budget proposal only reduced the department’s funding by less than 1% cut while cutting 32% of the Department of Youth and Community Development budget. In the last ten days, the Council’s demands have become more vociferous with several Council members threatening to vote against the budget if it does not significantly reduce the NYPD’s allocation.

Stringer has proposed slashing the police department’s funding by $1.1 billion over four years, and putting those funds towards communities that have been most impacted by over-policing and systemic structural racism.

Reversing course this past weekend, de Blasio announced he would be diverting some yet-to-be-identified funding from the NYPD to youth and social services. The amount will be determined in negotiations with Johnson and the Council, the mayor said, as the new city budget is due by July 1.

In light of repeated instances of police officers harassing reporters during the protests and threatening to confiscate their press badges, both Johnson and Stringer said the NYPD should no longer be in charge of credentialing reporters. (The NYPD had suspended new press card applications during the protests, but the mayor recently ordered the department to reopen the process.)

The backlash against the NYPD has already prompted action by the mayor. De Blasio announced on May 31 that the city’s Corporation Counsel Jim Johnson and Department of Investigation Commissioner Margaret Garnett would lead an investigation into the NYPD’s handling of the protests.

The Council has not been satisfied by those steps, however. On June 1, Johnson and Council Member Ritchie Torres, who chairs the Council's oversight and investigations committee, wrote to Garnett directing her to conduct an investigation independent of the corporation counsel, who is the city’s top lawyer and represents its interests in court. Garnett holds the only commissioner position that has required Council approval of the mayor’s nominee (though a voter-approved City Charter amendment just extended that to corporation counsel as well).

Johnson and Torres also called for scrutiny of the police department’s protocols regarding mass demonstrations.

The Council is also moving ahead on several police accountability bills, including one that would criminalize the use of chokeholds and other forms of deadly restraint by police officers. Currently, chokeholds are banned by department policy but do not lead to criminal penalties. De Blasio has pushed back against the bill, but it has enough sponsors to override a mayoral veto and the mayor has signaled willingness to compromise. A second bill, creating a disciplinary matrix to standardize disciplinary action for officer misconduct, is also expected to be amended and considered. The NYPD had agreed to create such a matrix in lieu of legislation last year, but it has yet to be established.

On Sunday, the mayor lifted the citywide curfew and announced another set of reforms. He announced the intention to shift funds from the NYPD to youth and social services and also said the NYPD would no longer be in charge of street vendor enforcement, which will be handled by a civilian agency, and that the police department will hire civilian “community ambassadors” to bring neighborhood concerns to the police. Additionally, the mayor’s Task Force on Racial Equity and Inclusion will examine other areas where NYPD enforcement may no longer be required.

In a statement to Gotham Gazette, Donovan condemned the NYPD suppression of the protests. "The violent actions taken by the NYPD this past week have no place in our city,” he said. “There can be no rationale for such aggressive posturing and harassment from our police force at any time, but it is even more inappropriate given the circumstances and purpose of the protests. New York City is the front door to the world; if we cannot guard the rights of our residents seeking to make their voices heard peacefully, how can we simultaneously hold ourselves up as a beacon of liberty?”

He also pointed to the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on communities as a symptom of systemic racism. “The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare once again that communities of color bear the lion's share of any misfortune that befalls America,” Donovan said. “This is not the mark of a civilized country, and the conclusion of this crisis cannot simply be a return to the status quo. Black and brown New Yorkers deserve a city that doesn't treat them as second class citizens.”

On Tuesday Donovan tweeted a photo of himself at a rally and march led by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (who has thus far pledged not to run for mayor in 2021) and personal reflections on policing and racism.

Morales has been actively participating in protests over the last week. She launched a resource page on her website to encourage donations to charitable bail funds, memorial funds for George Floyd, and to boost black-owned businesses and organizations fighting for police reform across the country. The page also includes links for mental health resources, legal resources for protesters, anti-racism educational material and information on voting. On Saturday, her campaign hosted a virtual community forum.

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Two Dozen Political Clubs Announce New Police Reform Demands of Electeds and Candidates


james oneil visit

NYPD officers (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


More than two dozen New York political clubs and civic organizations have come together to announce new demands on elected officials and candidates for office, attempting to sway the accelerating police reform conversation reignited by the killing of George Floyd.

The clubs will refuse to endorse candidates who accept donations from police unions or do not support major budget cuts to New York’s City and State police forces, among other planks, according to a letter being made public by the groups and shared with Gotham Gazette.

Signatories of the letter include Amplify Her; Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club; Make the Road Action; New Kings Democrats; Muslim Democratic Club of NY; Stonewall Democratic Club of NYC; and Sunrise NYC, among others.

Protests have erupted across New York City and the country after a video surfaced of then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes, despite the man exclaiming “I can’t breathe” multiple times and eventually becoming unresponsive. For New Yorkers, it was all-too-familiar to the death of Eric Garner, who made the same cry while in a chokehold by then-NYPD Officer Daniel Panteleo and whose 2014 death contributed to the galvanization of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Now, major reforms are being passed through the New York State Legislature with a promise to sign them from Governor Andrew Cuomo, while Mayor Bill de Blasio has pledged to enhance the NYPD disciplinary process and reversed course to announce plans to shift funds away from the police department, and New York political clubs are drawing lines in the sand about the importance of supporting police reform.

The clubs are demanding that candidates who receive endorsements do not take money from unions representing law enforcement or affiliated organizations, including the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) and Police Benevolent Association (PBA), the two most vocal NYPD unions.

“We all know that money is power and right now across the country we are seeing how police abuse their power,” said Winsome Pendergrass, a member of New York Communities for Change, in a statement. “We’re calling on our elected officials to reject campaign contributions from police associations. Our representatives need to look out for and invest in our communities, not be in the pocket of police associations.”

Other signatories of the letter include One Queens Indivisible; Yalla Brooklyn; The Jewish Vote; Our Progressive Future; Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn; Rockaway Revolution; and others. The coalition is still seeking groups to sign on as it looks to build a critical mass to influence both government policy and electoral campaigns, wherein many of the organizations regularly make candidate endorsements and encourage their members to support chosen candidates get elected in various ways.

The letter sharply criticizes de Blasio, who has disappointed many fellow Democrats with his approach to policing and police accountability, and who repeatedly defended members of his NYPD recently when questioned about multiple instances of alleged brutality, including when officers drove cars into protesters or when police beat peaceful protestors with batons. He also initially opposed budget cuts many, including signers of the letter, have called for. As of Monday, he said he would shift some NYPD funding to youth services in the upcoming budget but did not specify an amount.

Referring to the police unions, the letter states de Blasio has “shown himself to be too craven to take a stand against these dangerous organizations and against police violence,” and, so, the political clubs “call on the rest of our elected officials and candidates for office to take action.”

In addition to denying campaign donations from law enforcement unions and supporting police budget cuts, the groups ask officials and candidates to commit to reallocating $1 billion of the NYPD’s nearly $6 billion annual budget to social services such as housing, rent relief, youth programming, food assistance, and others. It also asks them to advocate for de Blasio to fire and release the names of NYPD officers who have been accused of excessive force, covered their badge numbers, or committed other misconduct.

The signing organizations also ask officials and candidates to call on District Attorneys to drop all charges against protestors arrested for violating the curfew that de Blasio recently instituted and since lifted, and support other reforms.

The state Legislature, where both houses are controlled by Democrats, is moving a large package of such reforms this week, including the repeal of section 50-a of the Civil Rights Law that keeps law enforcement officer disciplinary records private and has been the bane of police reform and watchdog organizations for years. It also, among other things, would clarify one’s right to record police officers making an arrest, create a special office to investigate police killings, and prohibit the use of chokeholds by law enforcement.

“Criminalizing the use of the chokehold by police or peace officers and prohibiting law enforcement officers from using racial and ethnic profiling are essential steps in bringing sorely needed police accountability reform to New York State,” said State Senator Brian Benjamin, a Manhattan Democrat, in a press release. “These reforms will put New York at the front of the pack in trying to bring justice to the families of Eric Garner, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ramarley Graham, Sean Bell and so many other families across this country who have been victims of police brutality.”

In their letter, the clubs call out the PBA and SBA for lobbying against such reforms and referencing a war on New York City and the mayor on Twitter.

“Police associations like the PBA and SBA have a toxic effect on our society and democracy,” said Fatou Waggeh, a member of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, in a statement. “You can’t claim to support Black lives while associating with organizations that defend police violence. It’s time to pick a side.”

The full list of signatories as of June 8: Amplify Her; Arc of Justice; Bangladeshi Americans for Political Progress (BAPP); Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats; CoDA - Coalition for a District Alternative; Emgage Action; Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club; Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn; Make the Road Action; MPower Change Action Fund; Muslim Democratic Club of NY (MDCNY); Muslims for Progress; New Kings Democrats; New York Communities For Change; One Queens Indivisible; Our Progressive Future; Queens United Independent Progressives; Rockaway Revolution; Smiling Coast Women Empowerment Network (SCWEN); Stonewall Democratic Club of NYC; Sunrise NYC; The Jewish Vote; Union of Arab Women; VOCAL-NY Action Fund; Yalla Brooklyn; YAMA Action.

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by Victor Porcelli, Gotham Gazette

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Electeds Negotiate Uneasy Peace with Police During Tense Brooklyn Standoffs


nypd bk protest williams lander 

Thursday evening in Brooklyn (photo: Ethan Geringer-Sameth/Gotham Gazette)


A tense standoff between peaceful marchers and police on a brownstone-lined block in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn could have turned violent Thursday night, if it was not for the intervention of local elected officials on the ground who negotiated the peaceful release of protesters corralled by cops intent on enforcing the mayor’s curfew.

What began as a large march that set off from Barclays Center shortly after the 8 o'clock curfew numbered in the hundreds around 10 p.m. when it was cornered by police at the intersection of Washington and Atlantic Avenues. For 20 distressing minutes, it was unclear whether the protesters decrying police brutality against black people would be allowed to leave safely and without a significant number of arrests.

The incident is an example of what many observers are calling arbitrary enforcement of the curfew set by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo in the face of looting and vandalism during the initial nights of what is now more than a week of unrest throughout the boroughs. It is also an example of the luck of a group of marchers on a night where police aggressively charged demonstrators across the city -- the first of two where Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and City Council Member Brad Lander made their way through the crowd of kettled protesters to reason with commanding officers.

On the eighth day of citywide demonstrations for police accountability and reform, these protesters had spent hours marching in the humid night through Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill without incident, while police followed at a distance. As the after-curfew hours turned from dusk to dark, the police contingent became a small army of officers blocking streets and pressing forward, funnelling the marchers into the largely residential Clinton Hill.

On Washington Avenue, they encountered a line of officers waiting with helmets on and batons in hand cordoning off the intersection of Atlantic Avenue. Behind them on Fulton Street another throng of police had sealed the block. With no outlet, the atmosphere changed.

Trapped in close quarters, the crowd bristled nervously against the backdrop of two Baptist churches and rows of pre-war houses, in a neighborhood that has become heavily gentrified in recent years. Some clambered over brownstone gates, attempting to take refuge on private stoops or in bushes, but were routed out by police back into the street.

A video later uploaded to Twitter by journalist John Knefel shows officers at the back of the pack swarming and hitting protesters with batons as they attempt to walk away from police ("completely unprovoked," Knefel wrote). A few people appear to have been arrested in the interaction.

"It's been non-violent the whole time. And all of a sudden you see aggression. Cops rush in. I'm literally like, 'What happened?' I thought maybe an officer was hit or something the way they--" Williams told Gotham Gazette at the scene after the ordeal.

"And they just kept saying, 'It's curfew, they need to go home, they're blocking traffic,'" Williams said of police officers that night. "If that is the criteria they are out here over-policing. Over-policing a curfew is not the answer."

"Look at all the cops here for a non-violent" protest, he said.

The mayor has been unclear in the face of questions about when police will use force on peaceful protesters who break curfew. De Blasio has said he wants to see "as light a touch as possible" by the NYPD and that officers should not use batons on peaceful protesters, while denying evidence that such an aggressive approach is being taken.

On the morning of the standoff, in response to reporters seeking specificity on the policy, de Blasio was vague: "If at a certain point officers say, 'OK, it's time, we need to go now,' people need to listen to that. It's not an unfair action to say in the context of crisis, in the context of curfew, 'There is a point where enough is enough.'"

Apparently for the officers monitoring the Brooklyn march on Thursday night, they decided it was “enough” about two hours after curfew and without any apparent act of violence or other provocation from the group.

Critics of the mayor's handling of the protests have pointed out that the curfew, first imposed Monday as a measure to curb attacks on stores and police officers, is now being used as a way to snuff out non-violent demonstrations.

There is also still the COVID-19 pandemic, and the threat of spreading the new coronavirus in dense gatherings remains. Most protesters wore face coverings Thursday night, in line with health guidelines and organizers were handing out masks, hand sanitizer, and water.

That evening, as officers advanced, Williams and Lander, who had also been with the demonstrators, stepped forward from the crowd to try to speak with police brass.

"They want to protest non-violently,” Williams told Officer Frank DiGiacomo of the 78th Precinct. “That's what this is. Civil disobedience." Protesters and reporters looked on from behind him and a huddle of higher-ranking officers gathered around, a line of cops in helmets at their backs. Also present that night was Chief Jeffrey Maddrey who oversees the precincts in north Brooklyn.

"Enforcing the curfew is the problem," Williams told the officers, not knowing whether they would soon begin a charge.

But the encounter proved serendipitous, as Lander recognized DiGiacomo from programs they had collaborated on in his surrounding district. DiGiacomo told the electeds the protesters were blocking roadways in addition to breaking curfew, but Lander and Williams implored him to let the marchers continue non-violently.

"Tomorrow you and I will have a story to tell about how you build bridges in your precinct and then you're able to actually deescalate when it matters," Lander told him.

With press holding up cameras and protesters chanting "The whole world is watching," police relented. Officers with plastic riot shields began letting groups of 10 to 20 marchers leave the block on the sidewalk, sealing off the pavement again after each group. Some protesters believed those allowed to leave were being arrested as they turned the corner.

But the truce, at least at the time, was honored and over the course of 20 minutes the march disbursed. A few people were arrested, Williams and Lander told Gotham Gazette, but not as many as there could have been. According to Lander, DiGiacomo deserved credit for the outcome. Images of bloody police crackdowns from other parts of the city and state circulated in news and social media throughout the night.

"Let's be clear, if we had not been there at that moment and recognized a couple of inspectors then this would have been violent. They would have started making more arrests," Lander said as he and Williams walked away into the open streets.

The Next Day
On Friday, Williams and Lander held a video press conference to discuss the prior night’s events and the larger context where they reiterated calls for the end of the curfew.

De Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea have insisted that the curfew -- the city’s first since 1943 -- has been working to reduce chaos and destruction at the hands of protesters and interlopers, but the duo from Brooklyn and dozens of other elected officials and civil rights advocates have said it has enabled brutality by police.

The New York Civil Liberties Union, Legal Aid Society, Center for Constitutional Rights, and others have threatened to sue the city if the mayor extends the curfew. (Legal Aid Society also appealed a Manhattan judge's decision Friday to allow law enforcement to arrest protesters for more than 24 hours without seeing a judge, which the group says violates fundamental due process rights.)

As protests continued into their ninth night Friday, a similar scene transpired at Grand Army Plaza at the north end of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, where a crowd had been contained after dark by a heavy police presence on a stretch of roadway near a traffic circle.

Video posted to Twitter by journalist Noah Hurowitz shows Williams and Lander again approaching the line to negotiate with commanding officers in white shirts, who appear to recognize and greet the officials. Videos from Williams and Lander also posted to Twitter that evening show march leaders making the decision to comply peacefully with the curfew and go home.

In a call and response with an organizer, the crowd stated its desire for non-violence: "I was informed / that no harm will be done / we will allow peaceful protest / and we are to go home / unharmed / and uncuffed / and I will obey."

Eventually, the demonstrators were again allowed to disperse along the sidewalks. But a short time later, about a mile away, on Nostrand Avenue and Montgomery Street, officers descended on a group in the street apparently making their way home and arrested dozens, according to accounts on Twitter from local reporters.

The NYPD did not provide comment on what happened during these events in Brooklyn Thursday and Friday night.

***
by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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