NYPD's Shea Defends Blocking Peaceful March On Manhattan Bridge

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — NYPD's top cop defended effectively trapping thousands of George Floyd marchers on the Manhattan Bridge during the height of protests.

Police feared the June 2 demonstrators — many of whom started at a church-organized "peaceful and prayerful" march in Park Slope— would ransack and loot Manhattan, Commissioner Dermot Shea said Monday in testimony to state Attorney General Letitia James.

"Multiple nights in a row we had people performing the same exact task: march over the bridge, go into lower Manhattan and break into stores," Shea said.

That night NYPD officers blocked the protesters' passage into Manhattan, causing a tense situation that previewed later controversial use of "kettling" — a police tactic where cops force large crowds into a confined space to get them to disperse.

Shea denied the incident on the bridge could be called "kettling," but it marked an apparent shift toward squeezing protesters together.

"I am still stunned," tweeted Jake Bittle, a freelance reporter, at the time. "The largest police force in the country trapped thousands of people on a bridge hundreds of feet above water for what was essentially a glorified stunt."

City Councilman Brad Lander, who represents Park Slope, criticized the NYPD's tactics on the bridge.

"Unacceptable to trap them for this long," he wrote on Twitter. "Designed to make angry people even angrier."

Lander later would go on the front lines of protests to prevent NYPD violence after protesters were kettled. But in the Bronx and Brooklyn's Cadman Plaza, nonviolent demonstrators fell under police batons and other aggressive actions to break up protests.

Shea and Mayor Bill de Blasio variously claimed the crackdowns were because of threats of violence. But further reporting, such as in a kettling incident in Mott Haven, showed those claims of "outside agitators" were largely unfounded.

Looting in Manhattan had died down in the night the protesters were trapped on the bridge.