BROOKLYN — With police radios blaring on their waistbands, a group of NYPD officers were heard in a video reacting to smashed and defaced police vehicles outside Brooklyn’s 88th Precinct Friday night after protesters stormed the station house and assaulted a desk lieutenant, according to police sources.
Some of the national demonstrations that started peacefully — to protest the police custody killing of Minneapolis man George Floyd — turned violent on Friday, including in Brooklyn near the Barclays Center.
The 88th Precinct is located at the corner of DeKalb and Classon avenues.
“Look at this s—t,” said a cop who was apparently taking footage of the scene. “Whose car is this?”
The video has been muted due to the use of profanity.
Watch: A video obtained by PIX11 News shows a row of NYPD vehicles destroyed during protests in Brooklyn Friday night pic.twitter.com/zp1ng4Kg08
— PIX11 News (@PIX11News) May 30, 2020
The video, obtained from police sources by PIX11 News, starts with a shot of a marked NYPD SUV.
The photographer tilts down to reveal glass on the street and then tilts back up to show both sides of the windshield smashed, with spray paint across the hood.
“Look at this s—t, bro,” the unnamed cop says again.
As the video moves to the next damaged car — an unmarked vehicle — its hood appears to be torn off with the engine exposed. The windshield is also destroyed.
The camera then moves to a third car outside the 88th Precinct before going across the street.
“They got the crime car here, too,” the man recording says, referencing a dark-colored unmarked anti-crime vehicle.
A symbol is spray-painted on the windshield and a poster was left on the hood with the words, “End Police Brutality Now.”
During the video, apparently shot on a cell phone, police radios can be heard going off and an officer is heard saying, “There may be a stolen radio.”
While the police officers were commenting on the vandalized vehicles, someone yelled from the street, “I can’t breathe!”
On Friday night, demonstrators outside the Barclays Center threw water bottles and debris at NYPD officers, who responded by using tear gas and mace to disperse the crowds.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, social distancing protocol went out the window as demonstrators vented their anger over Floyd’s death.
Fired Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was charged with Floyd’s murder earlier Friday.
A cell phone camera recorded the cop kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as the man begged for him to get off so he could breathe.
Floyd was unresponsive when he was put into an ambulance. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Back in Brooklyn, a police van was set on fire.
Mayor Bill de Blasio told protesters, “Direct that anger to politicians, not cops.”