NYPD Pepper Sprays Pride Marchers At Stonewall Anniversary Clash

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — A Pride march held on the Stonewall uprising's 51st anniversary descended into violence as NYPD officers attacked and pepper sprayed demonstrators.

Videos from the Queer Liberation March on Sunday show police officers violently shove and curse at protesters, fling a cyclist off her bicycle and unleash pepper spray.

The scenes unfolded as the Reclaim Pride Coalition-organized march reached Washington Square Park. The group denounced the violence and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea.

"I wish that I could say what I saw today was shocking, but how could I reasonably expect anything else from the NYPD?" said Jake Tolan, a march organizer, in a statement.

"Fifty one years after the Stonewall Rebellion, the NYPD is still responding to peaceful, powerful, righteous queer joy with pepper spray, batons, and handcuffs. Thank you, Commissioner Shea and the entire NYPD, for continuing to show us why you should be abolished."

Cops clashed with demonstrators after a Brooklyn man vandalized a patrol car with a black marker, the New York Post reported. The police arrested two other people on accusations they assaulted cops, the Post said.

From there, police started to rush protesters who responded with chants of "Whose streets? Our streets?"

The clashes escalated into the chaotic, pepper-spray laced confrontations shared millions of times online.

"The police just started a riot at Washington square park," read one tweet.

"Stonewall was an act of resistance against the police and now your cops are f---ing beating people and arresting them at a demonstration in Washington Square Park?" another person tweeted in a video from the march. "F---ing resign."

Several New York City politicians condemned the police. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson tweeted a "full investigation" is necessary.