(Gothamist) Roughed Up And Arrested For Protesting, New Yorkers Spend Hours In "Packed" Cells During Pandemic

Link to original story: https://gothamist.com/news/roughed-and-arrested-protesting-new-yorkers-spend-hours-packed-cells-during-pandemic

New Yorkers protesting police brutality are getting arrested and detained in harsh conditions overnight, with hundreds being held for more than 24 hours before arraignment, in violation of the law, amid fears of a potential uptick in coronavirus cases in New York City.

The Legal Aid Society filed an emergency writ of habeas corpus to free the detainees— at least 328 people were awaiting arraignment as of Thursday morning citywide—but a judge denied that request on Thursday afternoon, Legal Aid confirmed. The public defender group is ready to appeal if necessary, adding "the NYPD is fully responsible for the hundreds of New Yorkers who are currently languishing in cages, deprived of their due process rights and at an increased risk of contracting COVID-19."

More than 2,000 people have been arrested during protests in the city after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Arrested protesters Gothamist spoke with were jailed for blocking traffic, alleged disorderly conduct, or obstructing governmental administration—charges that normally do not require detention and could be addressed with summonses.

The NYPD did not immediately respond to comment on arrested protesters’ experiences or why they are choosing to arrest and detain protesters during a global pandemic, instead of issuing summonses. “We are working as fast and safely as we can," the department said in a statement on Wednesday. The Law Department's Chief of the Special Federal Litigation Patricia Miller said they're "pleased" that a judge "recognized that the NYPD is doing the best it can do under very challenging circumstances to safely process arrests stemming from the riots during this pandemic."

“I didn’t agitate, I didn’t provoke, I just was attacked,” said Mell, who was protesting Saturday night in Flatbush and requested that we only use her first name.

She was beaten and maced six times, and suffered bruises on her hip and a scraped knee from being tackled, she said.

“I just happened to be up front. I think, honestly, they were just grabbing anybody they could that was around,” she said. The 25-year-old Brooklyn resident was arrested for “disorderly conduct,” her desk appearance ticket said.

Mell stated that she was processed with other arrestees by 2:30 a.m at 1 Police Plaza., where they were held in a holding cell without water, medical attention, soap, or face masks.

“I was freezing and stinging at the same time because pepper spray doesn’t go away. It just stings randomly as you sweat,” she said. She wasn’t released from the cell until 11:30 a.m. the next day—nearly 14 hours after her she was taken into custody.

Bed-Stuy resident Leila Bordreuil was also arrested after protesting. She was held handcuffed in a police van and a transit cop precinct at a subway station in Lower Manhattan for 10 hours before being taken to a cell for processing after cops snatched her off the street as she was biking in the street near a van, according to Bordreuil and a video posted on social media.

“They were pretty violent in their arrest—kept telling me contradictory things like stand up, go to the ground, give me your bag, as they handcuffed my bag [to my wrists]. It was complete chaos,” she said. Cops called her a “bitch” repeatedly and accused her of trying to hijack the van after placing her there in the first place, she said. They allowed her to go to the bathroom and gave her a new mask eventually—but officers she was in close quarters with did not wear masks at all, claiming they were immune from the coronavirus.

“I’m just sore all over,” said Bordreuil, who got a criminal court appearance ticket for disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. “It’s hard to really know because you’re in such shock two days later. I’m still hurting everywhere.”

She went 36 hours without her epilepsy medication and suffered bruising and swelling on her wrists—which made her particularly worried because she’s a professional cellist.

A 29-year-old Ridgewood resident Jared Rodriguez was also arrested at the Manhattan Bridge Saturday night where dozens of bike cops chased after protesters once they got into Manhattan. He was cuffed after taking bike handlebars to the chin and having his mask ripped off his face on the Lower East Side, he said.

“Within the first two minutes of having my hands cuffed, I couldn’t feel them anymore. They had gone completely numb,” he said. Cops ended up having to cut them off after his hands swelled.

No one was wearing masks, and they were transported from a van to a cell at 1 Police Plaza with some 50 people in a cell.

“It was packed,” he said. “There was no water in there. I wasn’t expecting them to greet us with water but people were asking, literally begging for water. It was about four hours before they changed out the jug. There were people drinking out of the sink in the cell.”

At 6 a.m., he was released with a criminal court appearance ticket for low-level charges: walking on the roadway and not dispersing.

Cramped conditions inside vans and cells for hours or days on end could compound already precarious circumstances protesters are marching under as the COVID-19 crisis continues. Close contact with police, who often don’t wear masks at protests, can exacerbate these conditions.

“We’ve heard about activities such as kettling, which involves sort of condensing the crowd into a particular area, and that can promote transmission because now people are not able to maintain that physical distance that they need to,” Boston University epidemiologist Ellie Murray said. “Also, things like putting a large group of arrested individuals into a bus or other shared transport, crowding them into shared jail cells—these are things that are all going to be potential transmission spaces.”

“If it were up to me, those kinds of activities would not be happening, police would be limiting the amount of people they’re arresting just because those are really important transmission sites,” Murray added.

Days after her arrest, Bordreuil joined marches at Stonewall in Manhattan and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Tuesday night, telling Gothamist, “We’re not done.”

She’ll start taking more precautions, but she’s not afraid to be arrested again.

“I don’t just wanna feel good about myself by playing a part in social justice,” she said. “This is becoming a fascist police state. It’s a civil war. What am I going to do? Just sip my latte at home? Hell no.”

With Chloe K. Li.

This article has been updated with comments from the Legal Aid Society and the Law Department.