Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams issued the following statement after a newly released report from the city Department of Investigation detailed the failures of the NYPD response to the George Floyd protests during the summer of 2020.
"The Department of Investigation's report should come as no surprise to anyone willing to address or even acknowledge the realities of how the NYPD polices protests. I was interviewed as part of this inquiry, as a witness and as the highest-ranking Black elected leader in the city, and what we see in this report echoes what I saw and experienced on the streets - in the demonstrations around the killing of George Floyd, and in the months, years and decades of injustice that fueled them. The administration denied what we witnessed - to this day, they still deny the use of kettling - this report all but confirms it.
"I truly hope that now the administration will finally be willing to recognize the scope and severity of its spectacular failures in this area, and reckon with the structural inadequacies and systemic injustices that have brought us to this moment. We need change, but we cannot simply wait for action from an entity that took five years to fire Daniel Pantaleo. We need sustained civic action and strong civilian oversight to demand better systems and leadership as we work to redefine public safety. These efforts need to come with more rapid and robust accountability for the NYPD.
"This summer, the de Blasio administration's response to a protest movement centered on overpolicing and overaggression was to send more police and to be more aggressive. Throughout that period and since, the Mayor and Commissioner have repeatedly insisted that they haven't seen the video, haven't seen what we all experienced. I'm hopeful that now they've at least seen the report."