(Headline USA) Several New York City police officers were attacked and injured Wednesday as pro-police and anti-police protesters clashed on the Brooklyn Bridge, police said.
The confrontation happened hours before Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law a series of police accountability measures.
At least four officers were hurt, including Chief of Department Terence Monahan, and 37 people were arrested, police said. Information on charges was not immediately available.
Surveillance video posted on social media by the police department showed a man on the bridge’s pedestrian walkway rushing toward a group of officers and reaching over a fence to smack one of them in the head with a cane.
“This is not peaceful protest, this will not be tolerated,” said the tweet that accompanied the video.
Police photos of the aftermath showed a lieutenant with a bloodied face, a detective holding a bandage to his head, and a bicycle officer helping a fellow officer dress a head wound.
Monahan, who last month knelt in a show of solidarity with protesters, sustained injuries to his hand.
He and the other injured officers were marching with a pro-police group led by local clergy when they were met on the bridge by activists, some of whom have been camping outside City Hall in recent weeks to demand severe cuts to police funding.
Some people in the pro-police group marched with a banner that said, “We Support the NYPD.”
The leader of that group said they were calling for an end to a recent spate of violence, including the shooting death of a 1-year-old boy in Brooklyn.
De Blasio helped paint a Black Lives Matter mural on a Bronx street before signing the police reform measures.
They include a ban on chokeholds and other restraints that could restrict a person’s breathing.
Other reforms include requirements for officers to have their shield numbers visible — and not obscured by things like black mourning bands; for the NYPD to create and publish to its website a schedule of officer disciplinary violations and penalties, and for the department to disclose information about its secret surveillance technology.
Another makes clear that the public has a right to record police activity.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
