At least 58 anti-police demonstrators were arrested Friday evening after they flooded the streets of Harlem in New York City to protest an increase in police officers patrolling the subways to crack down on fare evasion.
The protest began around 5:30 p.m. and built up to around 200 people protesting Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to add 500 New York City police officers to patrol the subway system and several high-profile arrests that took place within the subway system over the past few weeks, the New York Post reported.
The group chanted, “Fuck the police” and “fare-free NYC,” as they headed east on 125th street by Malcolm X Boulevard.
Others in the crowd carried signs that read “NYPD Out of the Subway” and marched north towards the Bronx. The crowd then shut down traffic by taking over a roadway on the Third Avenue Bridge:
marching to show that the disgusting abuses of the nypd and mta will not be tolerated #FTP pic.twitter.com/tIEEMtbMIp
— luis (@qwiktwist) November 23, 2019
Police charged those they arrested with disorderly conduct and obstruction of governmental administration.
The protest, which was called FTP Emergency Action— an abbreviation for “Fuck the Police,” was promoted on social media by various anti-cop groups, including “DecolonizeThisPlace”:
⚡2ND FTP EMERGENCY ACTION LOCATION ANNOUNCEMENT! ⚡ Gather at the Harriet Tubman Memorial in Harlem at W. 122nd St. and Frederick Douglass Blvd. to receive your instructions. The night will just be beginning. 💥 LETS GO! 💥 pic.twitter.com/JYPwqEulEc
— DecolonizeThisPlace (@decolonize_this) November 14, 2019
The NYPD has been criticized by these groups for their alleged aggressive tactics when trying to patrol people for evading subway fares. In one instance in October, the NYPD drew guns at an alleged fare evader before arresting him.
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