Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As you probably heard last night, the NYPD arrested nearly 60 protestors after a day of post-election demonstrations in Manhattan. Here, with us now for a few minutes, is Gwynne Hogan, reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. Gwynne was following the protest last night and witnessed the arrests. Hi, Gwynne.
Gwynne Hogan: Hi.
Brian: First, who is protesting, and why on a night when Biden appeared to be winning and votes were being counted in every state without a pennant hindrance?
Gwynne: Right. There was a couple of different things going on yesterday. At first, I started out with a march that was outside The New York Public Library in Midtown, near Bryant Park. That group was an older crowd, diverse, but wider than protests that I've been covering for the past four months. There were unions represented there. There were clergy leaders. There were more established community groups like New York Communities for Change was there. That protest was very lightly policed with officers not wearing riot gear, just walking alongside. That action, they marched south to Washington Square Park and that group disbursed as the sun had set.
Then, another group of marchers who were more associated with the Black Lives Matter marchers more. I would say, further to the left, politically. Some people were distributing Black Bloc flyers, which is encouraging people to wear all black so that you can't be identified by police and that can be associated with anti-fascist groups or with anarchist groups, and that's where the police presence was immediately, 200%. As soon as they left Washington Square Park, they were flanked by twice as many officers and police in full body armor, and it escalated and quickly spiraled out of control after that.
Brian: At least 58 people were arrested is the number that I have. Some were apparently apprehended violently. What did you witness? I gather you have a clip of a protestor about that.
Gwynne: Yes, it was-- We've been on the streets covering this stuff for four months now. This was more like a response that we saw in the early George Floyd protest. Basically, the crowd was marching quickly through the streets. I saw one small fire lit in the middle of the street, and moments later, that seemed like that was what allowed police to begin to use their bikes to shove protesters to the ground. I watched somebody literally being pinned on top of a bike, who was screaming in pain. I watched others being tackled to the ground. That was after one fire, and then, the police used that to crack down on the whole group.
That crowd retreated and dispersed and kept marching, and I was running to try to figure out where they had gone, and then, they were kettled, which we've seen used again and again these past months. A kettle is basically-- They were blocked from crossing Fifth Avenue on 8th Street, and then, they were pinned in from behind. Then, we saw police using bikes to shove them in, even though they were trapped and they couldn't disperse and more violent arrests occurred there with people screaming out in pain. It was a chaotic, chaotic scene. The person that we can throw to the tape, his name is Shakee Merritt, he witnessed the kettle and I spoke to him right after.
Shakee Merritt: A majority of protesters are doing their best to keep this as peaceful as possible, but when we have a system where the police are attacking people, then, it goes from-- They're going to find anything to attack people because they're angry. You have to understand, when people chant Black Lives Matter, it's a rebellion to white, to the police, the Blue Lives Matter, and they're police.
Gwynne: Yes, I think we've seen-- He describes this us versus them. Many of these people are not Biden supporters but they're very anti-Trump, so you see the BLM marchers representing one side of the political spectrum and the police representing the other.
Brian: Has the mayor responded to these charges and descriptions of police violence from last night?
Gwynne: Yes, my colleague, Cindy Pereira asked him about this this morning in the press conference. He said they'll be looking at each different situation, but he also talked about-- He praised their de-escalation tactics. He said, "That's what we trained for in the Police Academy," and that, overall, that's what the police have been doing, that's what they've been doing in protests over the past eight months. I mean, last night, I would not describe that as de-escalation, rather the opposite. I don't know what you can do in a situation where people sense that things may escalate to something more violent, but it seemed from, my perspective, that the violence escalated because of how police handled the situation.
Brian: The NYPD tweeted, from their point of view last night, that they had confiscated weapons from protestors and were responding to trashcan fires that had been set in the West Village. Did you witness evidence of escalating violence or property damage on the protestor's side?
Gwynne: Right. Like I said, there was one small fire that was lit before the first aggressive kettle of protestors. I did see that. After that, which we've seen again and again, when there is further aggression by police, then, things spiral out of control. I saw several fires after the first kettle had taken place because people were angry that they were brutalized again. I guess it's sort of-- Police have later tweeted that they arrested protestors and found apparently two knives. They tweeted out a picture of sharp Sharpies and some, what appeared to be, fireworks or firecrackers.
We still are trying to see what the actual charges are. They haven't given us charges. We don't know how many people were charged with actual weapons possession. That could have been on one person. It could have been on 10 people. We don't know that yet, but the rest that I saw, the legal officers were yelling, "OGA, OGA, OGA," which is obstructing governmental administration. That's not-- Those people-- Many of the people that I witnessed were not being-- It appeared that they were being charged with OGA, not weapons possession.
Brian: 10 seconds, Gwynne, are more protest schedule for today?
Gwynne: I am watching out to see. I don't see anything planned yet, but obviously, in the next couple of days, I'm sure we'll see more folks hitting to the streets, especially if we see a result come our way soon, maybe in the next few minutes.
Brian: WNYC and Gothamist reporter, Gwynne Hogan. Gwynne, thanks a lot.
Gwynne: Thanks, Brian.
Brian: Who knows, maybe we will see the presidency called by at least some of the networks in the next few minutes. I think Nevada, they're supposed to release many ballots at 12 Eastern Time. The Brian Lehrer Show is produced by Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Zoe Azulay, Amina Srna, and Carl Boisrond. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen works on our daily podcast. Our interns are Dan Girma and Erica Scalise. Megan Ryan is the head of live radio. That's Juliana Fonda at the audio controls. Thanks for listening. I'm Brian Lehrer.
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