Video shared on social media on Monday shows NYPD officers using force to arrest three people for allegedly refusing to socially distance in Brooklyn.
Police said they tried to break up a group gathered on the corner of Fountain Avenue and Blake Avenue in East New York Saturday at around 8:40 p.m., in defiance of social-distancing orders.
“Officers gave multiple commands for the group to disperse,” but 32-year-old Albert Jones allegedly refused, a police spokeswoman said.
The footage shows three cops trying to handcuff Jones — eventually forcing him to turn around and pushing him up against a car — as a crowd forms around them.
That’s when a man, identified by cops as Antonio Rivera, 28, rushes the officers from behind — and one of them flings his arm around and knocks the civilian to the ground.
“Stand back!” the cop yells at Rivera, who appears to lie still on the pavement.
The officer then flips Rivera on his stomach — and bystanders can be heard crying out in shock.
“He’s unconscious,” one person screams, as the cop places his knee on Rivera’s back to cuff him.
Several people continue to shout at the cops, and at least two can be seen with their phones out, filming the incident.
NYPD spokeswoman Detective Denise Moroney said that Rivera had “approached officers from behind in an aggressive manner and attempted to stop the arrest of [Jones].”
Another person, 31-year-old Gary Best, had also allegedly refused to disperse and became “boisterous, causing a large crowd to form,” the spokeswoman said.
“Physical force by police does not equal misconduct,” said Moroney.
“Under no circumstance are large group gatherings acceptable — they put our NYPD officers, frontline healthcare workers and others at risk,” she added.
“That said, social distancing is about raising awareness for the common good rather than punishing the few.”
All three men were hit with obstructing governmental administration in the second degree and several other charges. Jones was also charged with harassment in the second degree and disorderly conduct and Rivera was also charged with marijuana possession and resisting arrest.
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office said it would not pursue the charges against Jones and Best, as part of its policy during the pandemic not to prosecute low-level arrests that don’t require a judicial action at arraignment.
Rivera, meanwhile, was released without bail at his arraignment on Monday.
“Saturday night’s arrest over a marijuana cigarette comes in the context of the NYPD’s pattern of escalating low-level encounters with New Yorkers of color into brutal assaults.This misconduct is unconscionable at any time but especially egregious in the midst of a pandemic where each person-to-person contact risks exacerbating the spread COVID-19,” said Jennvine Wong, an attorney at the Legal Aid Society, which is representing Rivera.
Wong called for an immediate investigation into the incident.
The footage of the bust came after now-viral video of a cop roughing up a man during a social-distancing arrest Saturday in the East Village sparked controversy.
The cop, Officer Francisco Garcia, was stripped of his gun and placed on modified duty, pending a probe by the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau into the incident.
In response, the city’s largest police union demanded that cops get “out of the social-distancing enforcement business.”
Police critics called Garcia’s actions “egregious.”
“Saturday night’s arrest over a marijuana cigarette comes in the context of the NYPD’s pattern of escalating low-level encounters with New Yorkers of color into brutal assaults,” Jennvine Wong, a staff attorney with the Cop Accountability Project at the Legal Aid Society. “This misconduct is unconscionable at any time but especially egregious in the midst of a pandemic where each person-to-person contact risks exacerbating the spread COVID-19.”
Forty-three summonses were issued Saturday in city parks, and eight outside of the green spaces, with “the majority” of the 51 for failing to maintain social distancing.