New York City’s top uniformed police officer, two lieutenants and a sergeant were injured on Wednesday in two separate incidents on the Brooklyn Bridge, including one that involved an attack with some kind of stick or pole as protesters marched nearby, officials said. The altercations were the latest to erupt between officers and the public in the roughly seven weeks since the city became the scene of widespread protests against police brutality and systemic racism in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And they came on a day when Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a package of bills meant to rein in police abuses — the most contentious measure being a ban on chokeholds. The department and police union leaders have said the new laws would make it harder for officers to do their jobs and lead to an onslaught of crime. The episode on Wednesday occurred around 9:45 a.m., when Terence A. Monahan, the Police Department’s chief of department and top uniformed officer, and other officers tried to arrest a person who had jumped onto the bridge’s roadway from the adjoining walkway during a Black Lives Matter protest march, Lt. John Grimpel, a Police Department spokesman, said.

Source: New York Times July 16, 2020 01:18 UTC