Violence, Unmarked Van at NY Protest Draw Comparisons to Portland Clashes
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NEW YORK — NYPD officers clashed violently with protestors again Tuesday night, this time in Madison Square Park in Manhattan, leaving one woman to be taken to jail in an unmarked police vehicle and six others in a transport van. The clashes came a week after New York Police Department officers destroyed a protest encampment at City Hall in New York in the predawn hours. Protests in the city and across the country have reignited as images of federal officers battling with protesters in Portland, Oregon have gripped the nation.
Video shot at the march shows police beating protesters with batons and an unidentified woman being thrown into a silver unmarked van by people who said they were police.
The video, posted to Instagram, shows people believed to be NYPD officers, though they weren’t wearing uniforms, pulling a woman into a tan minivan with New York license plates before speeding off. The sudden hustling of a protester into an unmarked car drew comparisons to the melee in Portland where federal officers without clear identification grab people off the street and toss them into cars. Uniformed bike officers with the NYPD created a wall around the van as if to provide assistance.
