Pro-Gaza protesters arrested for closing Manhattan Bridge

Adam Schrader
·2 min read
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UPI
A line of NYPD Police arrest vans move down Broadway after the streets surrounding the campus at Columbia University become a frozen zone in New York City on April 30, 2024. Pro-Palestine student demonstrators occupied the Hamilton Hall building overnight and refused to vacate the premises. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

May 12 (UPI) -- Hundreds of protesters shut down the Manhattan Bridge in New York City on Saturday to support Gaza as the NYPD struggles to accommodate demonstrations protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Kaz Daughtry, the NYPD's deputy commissioner of operations, said on social media that more than 100 protestors intentionally blocked lanes of traffic on the Manhattan Bridge. He shared aerial footage showing police arresting protestors. According to the New York Post, journalists covering the march were among those arrested.

"This footage gives us a bird's-eye view of our police officers placing individuals under arrest, restoring order, and keeping NYC moving. More than an inconvenience, this is a public safety hazard," Daughtry claimed.

Police in the United States often cite other laws referencing trespassing and the blocking of roads as justification for shutting down gatherings that would otherwise be protected by the First Amendment without offering other venues for public protest.

"The NYPD will always protect freedom of speech and protest, but we will not stand for lawlessness!" Daughtry said in his post.

In September 2023, before the outbreak of Israel's latest war on Gaza, the American Civil Liberties Union and Legal Aid Society reached a proposed agreement with New York Attorney General Letitia James and the NYPD that stipulates that police will accommodate such demonstrations whenever possible in the aftermath of 2020's George Floyd protests.

"The parties share the goal of an approach to policing that assures the rights of protesters, journalists and legal observers and uses arrest and force only when necessary and in compliance with [the Constitution and local laws]," the agreement reads.

Marching on public roads and across bridges has been a staple of protest movements since Martin Luther King Jr. led civil rights activists across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama.

But since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, the NYPD has become increasingly political under the administration of pro-Israel Mayor Eric Adams.

In November, the Police Benevolent Association -- the influential union -- filed a motion opposing the agreement. The police union takes issue with the fact that police might be compelled not to respond to a protest until it turns violent.