At least three NYPD officers sustained serious non-life-threatening injuries after “Stop the Violence” marchers were met by counter-protesters as they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge.
The demonstrations started peacefully Wednesday morning as the large group marched toward the Brooklyn Bridge, where tensions started after about a dozen Black Lives Matter activists countered the march and briefly shut down the bridge, police said.
“Three officers violently attacked by protesters crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. The officers sustained serious injuries,” the NYPD wrote on Twitter, adding a video of the attack.
In the video, NYPD officers appear to be attempting an arrest on someone when a man rushes toward the officers and hits them several times with a large object that appears to be a walking cane.
“This is not peaceful protest, this will not be tolerated,” the department said. Monahan, who is the highest-ranking member of the department and joined the “Stop the Violence” march, is seen on one of the pictures with a bloodied face.
The NYPD released pictures of the officers that were injured following the clashes.
The other two officers who were injured in the altercation were taken to a hospital to get stitches, police said. The charges against the 37 people who were taken into custody are still pending.
The “Stop the Violence” march was initiated due to the sharp rise in gun violence across the city in recent months and many former NYPD officers, religious demonstrators, and supporters joined the march.
“We are fed up and tired of seeing a 1-year-old shot, a 12-year-old paralyzed,” the leader of the march and president of the United Clergy Coalition, Bishop Gerald Seabrooks, told the station. “No, we need the police. What we’re saying is we don’t want police brutality.”
A pro-police demonstrator told ABC7 the march was organized because “we support the police and we need their help because this city is becoming a war zone.”
