No Discipline For Cop Pulling Gun On Protest, Commissioner Says

UNION SQUARE, MANHATTAN — The officer who pulled his gun on a crowd on one of the first nights of police brutality protests will face "absolutely no discipline" from the department, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said this week.

Shea told Attorney General Letitia James during a hearing Monday that the incident, which was captured in a now-viral video, was not one of the cases where an officer will be reprimanded for behavior during ongoing protests spurred by the death of George Floyd.

The video shows an officer waving his gun at a crowd on East 12th Street and Broadway during a chaotic scene between police and protesters on May 31.

"There is absolutely no discipline in that case — and I think if you investigate that incident I would hope you would agree," Shea told James, who held her third hearing Monday in an investigation of police interactions with protesters.

Shea pointed to the moments before the officer pulled out his gun when explaining why no discipline was needed, including a lieutenant who was hit in the head with a brick.

"You had a long period of time where literally everything but the kitchen sink was being thrown at officers," Shea said.

"The superior, a lieutenant, who is still injured and home, by the way, was cowardly attacked with a brick…smashed down on his head. And this was the incident — that environment — to that the officer was pulling his gun out to."

It was one of several moments in the commissioner's hour-long testimony Monday where he scuffled with James about her recollection of violent incidents during the protests, which were informed by dozens of protesters who testified last week. Shea contended that instances of bad behavior by NYPD were "isolated" and qualified the protests as being "almost immediately" violent toward officers sent to control them.

Less than 10 officers — including a cop who pulled down a protesters mask to spray him with pepper spray and an officer who is facing criminal charges for pushing a woman to the ground — have faced discipline from the weeks of protests, Shea estimated.

"When the officers are wrong, they need to be dealt with and there needs to be repercussions and that needs to be done swiftly and in a transparent fashion," he told James.

The commissioner, however, continued to defend officers who trapped protesters on the Manhattan Bridge and officers who drove their cars into a crowd in Brooklyn.

Protesters who testified last week told stories of police descending on peaceful demonstrations and making mass arrests surrounding Mayor Bill de Blasio's much-criticized 8 p.m. curfew, covering their badge numbers, harassing essential workers and using pepper spray and batons on demonstrators.

Watch the rest of Shea's testimony, which cut out during some moments due to technical difficulties, here.