George Floyd protests: NYPD vehicle rams crowd of demonstrators in Brooklyn

Incident comes after governor of New York launches investigation into alleged police brutality

A NYPD rams into a crowd of protesters in Brooklyn on 30 May, 2020 (Twitter/Pierre Garapon )

A New York City Police Department (NYPD) vehicle drove into a crowd of protesters in Brooklyn on Saturday, a video posted on social media has shown.

The incident came on a third day of protests in New York, triggered by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis after an officer knelt on his neck.

In a video posted on Twitter, the NYPD car is seen suddenly accelerating into a group of people, who had set up a barricade in front of it.

It is unclear whether anyone was injured as a result.

The footage first shows protesters throwing objects such as a traffic cone at a stationary police vehicle, before it rams through the barricade and knocks people over.

Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, told local news channel NY1 that the video was “troubling”, but added that the situation would not have occurred “if those protesters had just gotten out of the way”.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democrat Representative, said that the mayor’s words were “unacceptable” and that events like it “should never, ever be normalized”.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez also called on Mr de Blasio to bring those responsible to justice.

The ramming incident happened shortly after Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, asked the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, to investigation allegations of police brutality during protests on Friday.

The NYPD has said that at least 120 people have been arrested during the protests and that 15 police vehicles have been damaged or destroyed.

Meryl Makielski, a Brooklyn protester, said the protests are “bigger than the pandemic”, before adding: "The mistakes that are happening are not mistakes. They're repeated violent terrorist offences and people need to stop killing black people. Cops seem as though they've been trained to do so."

Additional reporting from AP