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Nearly 150 New York City police officers violated department rules during 2020 protests in the wake of George Floyd's death, a new report states.
According to the report released on Monday (February 6) by the Civilian Complaint Review Board, 146 officers committed misconduct including the improper use of batons, pepper spray, excessive force, and offensive language, per ABC 7.
There were hundreds more allegations that the Board was unable to investigate because officers covered their badge numbers with bands or refused to be interviewed, Monday's report said.
"The Black Lives Matter Protests that occurred in the summer of 2020 were massive in scale, but not unprecedented in nature," interim CCRB Chairwoman Arva Rice said. "Given what is happening across the country regarding reproductive rights, immigration, affordable housing, and police brutality, people will continue to protest for their rights. It is key for New York to know how to best respond to protests, especially protests against police misconduct."
The New York Police Department disagreed with the way the CCRB described its response to the protests. The department said the Board failed to acknowledge that officers were "working under sustained, dangerous conditions," ABC 7 reports.
"At the peak of the protests, there were more than 22,000 NYPD officers deployed in a single day, attempting to facilitate people's rights to peaceful expression all while addressing acts of lawlessness including wide-scale rioting, mass chaos, violence, and destruction," the department said. "Officers were faced with perpetrators who were looting, setting fires, and destroying property. During this period, more than 400 uniformed members of the NYPD were injured, with over 250 of them hospitalized, and nearly 300 NYPD vehicles were vandalized, including several that were destroyed by arson from the throwing of Molotov cocktails."
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