On July 4 of last year, NYPD officers stormed a Crown Heights barbecue, spraying mace into the crowd, entering private property without a warrant or the owner’s permission, beating people, and making several arrests. Two videos, one uploaded to YouTube at the time and the other published today, show the chaos and violence as it happened. One officer can be heard calling Emma Francis-Snyder, who filmed the second video, a “bitch,” and another is documented telling people to “get the fuck out of the way.”
Residents of the Eastern Parkway building have not filed a lawsuit–one filed a fruitless complaint with the NYPD–but believe that the cops used unnecessary force and that race was a motivating factor. One attorney agrees. “This is a product of a police response to assemblies, particularly of African Americans,” Mark Taylor told Brooklyn Paper as part of an article about the incident. “The police seem to consider such assemblies unlawful. There is no legal basis for it.”
“If you are white, you can have a barbecue,” he added. “It is crazy.”
