See It: NYPD Take Down, Cuff Woman After Mask Fracas In Brooklyn

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — A swarm of NYPD officers took down and cuffed a woman in Brooklyn subway station apparently after she didn't properly wear a face mask — all while a child with her watched.

"She got a kid with her, man," a bystander said on a video showing the Wednesday takedown. "Too much, man."

Too much is right, agreed Mayor Bill de Blasio on Twitter after the video went viral. De Blasio, who has maintained police need to enforce social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic, wrote face coverings are necessary to protect everyone.

They're not optional, he wrote.

"But no one wants to see an interaction turn into this," he wrote. "We’ve made progress with de-escalation. This isn’t it."

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De Blasio echoed the comments during a Thursday news conference.

"No one wants to see video like that," he said. "We should never have a situation where a mom with her child ends up under arrest for that kind of thing."

The incident unfolded in Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center subway station. Police told the woman to wear the mask seen draped around her neck over her nose and mouth, the New York Post reported.

But apparently the woman refused and police escorted her out of the subway station while she shouted protests, child in hand. An officer tried to put his hand on her but she swatted it away, the video shows.

"Do not touch me," she shouted right before several officers swarmed and took her to the ground.

One officer separated the child from the melee, the video shows.

It's the latest in a spate of videos showing violent confrontations between NYPD officers and people of color over coronavirus-related disputes. The videos, along with statistics showing minorities have borne the brunt of social distancing enforcement, have sparked controversy and a pending probe by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The subway station video only added fuel to the fire. Some people online pointed out NYPD officers often don't practice what they preach when it comes to masks.

"The NYPD are notorious for not wearing their masks," wrote Molly Crabapple on Twitter.

The Legal Aid Society, a social justice law firm, responded to the video by reiterating and amplifying calls to get NYPD out of social distancing enforcement.

"The evidence continues to mount that Mayor Bill de Blasio and Commissioner Dermot Shea made a terrible judgment call by asking police officers to aggressively enforce social distancing rules, exposing people of color, who are already bearing the brunt of suffering during this terrible pandemic, to further harm from aggressive police enforcement actions," said Corey Stoughton, a Legal Aid attorney, in a statement. "The Mayor and Commissioner continue to mistake a public health crisis for a law enforcement issue. We need a different approach that removes policing like this from the equation."

Shea, the police commissioner, passionately denied Wednesday that NYPD is a racist police department.

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