New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Daughter Arrested at George Floyd Manhattan Protest

Chiara de Blasio poses backstage at the Anna Sui fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2015 at The Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York City on Sept. 10, 2014. Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

The daughter of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was among some 350 arrested on Saturday night after she participated in demonstrations in Manhattan, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has confirmed.

Chiara de Blasio, 25, was arrested at about 10:30 p.m. Saturday during demonstrations against police brutality in response to the death of George Floyd, NYPD sources confirmed with The Epoch Times.

Police sources said de Blasio was arrested for unlawful assembly at 12th Street and Broadway in Lower Manhattan, after allegedly blocking traffic and refusing to move when asked by officers.

“That was a real hotspot, police cars were getting burned there, people were throwing and yelling, fighting with cops,” an unamed law enforcement official told the New York Post. “There were thousands of people in that area at that time.”

NYPD sources told The Epoch Times that the 25-year-old was arrested for unlawful assembly, given a desk appearance ticket, and was later released. The sources declined to comment on when she was released.

A police report of the incident obtained by the Daily Mail noted that some 100 protestors, including de Blasio, were arrested after hurling objects at police.

The 25-year-old did not inform officers that she was the mayor’s daughter, but provided his Upper East Side home—also known as the Gracie Mansion—as her address, according to the Post.

News of her arrest came after mayor de Blasio said a small group of well-organized “anarchists” were behind much of the violence, echoing comments from Attorney General William Barr on Saturday that the violence within these protests appears to have been “planned, organized, and driven” by groups of outside radicals and agitators who are exploiting the situation in order to achieve “their own separate and violent agenda.”

The Epoch Times contacted City Hall for comment, but did not immediately hear back.

New York City police said that since the protests began late last week, nearly 790 people have been arrested, 33 officers have been injured and 27 police vehicles have been damaged or destroyed by fire. There were no major injuries reported.

Mayor de Blasio did not mention his daughter’s arrest during a press briefing on Sunday, but he noted that city police showed “tremendous restraint overall,” adding that he does not plan to impose a curfew, unlike other major U.S. cities and smaller cities throughout the state.

“We all better get back to the humanity here,” the mayor said Sunday morning. “The protesters are human beings. They need to be treated with tremendous respect. The police officers are human beings. They need to be treated with tremendous respect.”

A vandalized New York Police Department vehicle is seen after a protest following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis Police custody, in New York City, on May 30, 2020. Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Police try to contain protesters during a rally at the Barclays Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York on May 29, 2020. Frank Franklin II/AP Photo

He promised an investigation into a video showing two police cruisers lurching into a crowd of demonstrators in a Brooklyn street, knocking people to the ground.

A number of major cities have been rocked by riots and looting in recent days, following Floyd’s death, including in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Denver, Cincinnati, Portland, Oregon, and Louisville, Kentucky.

A widely circulated video showed Floyd, 46, lying down and handcuffed as a police officer was seen kneeling on the man’s neck for nearly nine minutes. The footage showed Floyd telling officers that he “can’t breathe” before his body went motionless. According to a Minneapolis Fire Department report (pdf), Floyd was unresponsive and “pulseless” when he was being transported into an ambulance by paramedics from the site of his arrest to the hospital.

The police officer who was seen kneeling on the man’s neck, Derek Chauvin, was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter on Friday. Chauvin and three other police officers involved in the arrest have since been fired.

According to preliminary autopsy findings by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, Floyd did not die due to strangulation or traumatic oxygen deprivation. The autopsy report cited in the complaint (pdf) against Chauvin suggests Floyd died from a combination of heart disease and “potential intoxicants in his system” that were aggravated by the restraint placed on him by officers.

According to a tally compiled by the Associated Press, at least 4,100 people have been arrested across the United States over days of protests.

Janita Kan and the Associated Press contributed to this report.