A man accused of punching the chief of the New York Police Department and two other officers was released without bail.
Quran Campbell, a 25-year-old Bronx resident, was accused of punching Terence Monahan, the highest-ranking police officer in the NYPD, several times in the face, as well as punching another officer and a lieutenant on the Brooklyn Bridge during a protest on Wednesday. He was arraigned on assault charges and granted supervised release in Manhattan criminal court, according to the New York Post.
A second Bronx man, Shaborn Banks, 25, was also charged with allegedly striking the same lieutenant, Richard Mack of the department’s Strategic Response Group, several times in the face.
The fight with officers broke out Wednesday morning when protesters interrupted a pro-NYPD march that was crossing the bridge.
“This is what we dealt with since the first protest after George Floyd,” Monahan said about the incident. “It is a legitimate movement, but it is being hijacked by these anarchists, and they are the ones that have been attacking our police officers [and] are out hiding behind the many, many peaceful protesters that are out there.”
Crime overall, specifically shootings, have spiked in New York City in recent months, and many blame actions taken by city leadership, including disbanding the city’s plainclothes police unit, a new bail reform law, slashing the police budget by $1 billion, and the deteriorating relationship between the mayor and police department officials.
The number of police officers filing retirement papers has surged as well in recent weeks following the death of George Floyd on May 25. Filings quadrupled in the first week of July, causing the department to limit the number of retirements that can be filed going forward.
