Two NYP Cops Allegedly Attacked Assaulted

Police are expect­ed to talk about putting togeth­er a reward in the search for six peo­ple who alleged­ly assault­ed two NYPD lieu­tenants dur­ing a protest over the week­end. There was a thank you Monday night from Police Commissioner Bill Bratton to who­ev­er post­ed this video on YouTube.

“I want to thank them with pro­vid­ing us with the evi­dence will use to arrest and suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cute them,” Police Commissioner William Bratton said. The video of the assaults has been enhanced to help find the suspects.
Investigators say the video shows lieu­tenants Patrick Sullivan and Phillip Chan being assault­ed Saturday night by a small group of peo­ple dur­ing a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge. They were try­ing to arrest Eric Linkser, who they say resist­ed arrested.
The 29-year-old alleged­ly tried to toss a 50-pound garbage can from the ele­vat­ed walk­way at offi­cers on the road­way below.
He man­aged to get away but the Baruch College pro­fes­sor was arrest­ed hours later.

Police are now look­ing for six more peo­ple, three men and three women, who tried to stop the arrest.
“It’s a two-minute peri­od that goes by where there are indi­vid­u­als who are punch­ing and kick­ing our two lieu­tenants. Linkser is clear­ly resist­ing and there is video evi­dence that he throws a punch,” said Chief of Detectives William Aubry, NYPD.
Both offi­cers suf­fered bumps and bruis­es; one end­ed up with a bro­ken nose.
Detectives say the man in the dark cap kicked Sullivan while he was on the ground. Another woman in a mul­ti­col­ored skirt yanked Sullivan back­wards. A man in a hood­ed sweat­shirt punched Chan in the face. A woman in a red scarf took a swing at the offi­cers. Both offi­cers were wear­ing NYPD jack­ets with iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and were work­ing with the Legal Affairs Bureau to ensure pro­test­ers rights were pro­tect­ed. “Our goal is that the peace­ful pro­test­ers get the right to protest. And inci­dents like what occurred on Saturday night small group try­ing to pre­vent what was oth­er­wise a rather … peace­ful day. Many fam­i­lies who want­ed to express to her out­rage,” said Deputy Commissioner Larry Burn, NYPD Legal Affairs.

“We do not take attacks on our police offi­cers light­ly, we nev­er have and nev­er will,” Bratton said.

The judge set a court date for Linkser in March, and told him that felony charges are pend­ing for then, when he sees what kind of evi­dence police will have at that time, par­tic­u­lar­ly for kick­ing an offi­cer in the face. Police insist there is video evi­dence of Linkser resist­ing arrest and punch­ing the offi­cer. Linkser, who teach­es com­po­si­tion at Baruch, is not afraid to share his anti-police views. He has gone on record with anti-police state­ments, and dur­ing the protests, Linkser’s Twitter page was laden with pic­tures of police car van­dal­ism and com­ments with the hash­tag “turn up the anger.” Meanwhile, it was de Blasio’s com­ments regard­ing the assault that angered the Sergeants Benevolent Association union. He denounced the attack, which he called an “alleged assault.” The use of the word “alleged” upset the sergeants union so much that it prompt­ed the pres­i­dent to call de Blasio a “nin­com­poop.”
“And I feel that we have an inde­ci­sive may­or,” union pres­i­dent Ed Mullins said. “And if we look at the his­to­ry of what he’s been doing, this has been an admin­is­tra­tion that has been filled with tur­moil and a lot of indecisiveness.”

It came just one day after union offi­cials offered a peti­tion to its mem­bers that, if signed, would ask the may­or and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito to stay away from their funer­als should they be killed in the line of duty. De Blasio called the peti­tion unac­cept­able and divi­sive. PBA pres­i­dent Patrick J. Lynch respond­ed to the com­ments, say­ing, “It is very clear to me that the may­or has no idea of just how angry New York City police offi­cers are at him for his lack of sup­port and for lay­ing decades of soci­ety’s prob­lems unde­served­ly at their feet.” On Monday, the may­or was more force­ful in his denounc­ing of the assault, and also called on peace­ful pro­test­ers to step up. “We had a very small num­ber of peo­ple who did the wrong thing, and it will not be tol­er­at­ed,” de Blasio said. “But I’m ask­ing those who are work­ing for change to step up and speak out and make clear that any attack on the police will not be tol­er­at­ed, and to work with the police to find any­one and every­one involved.”
De Blasio also was the focus of a group of demon­stra­tors on Monday night. About 50 pro­test­ers gath­ered out­side Gracie Mansion, the may­oral res­i­dence, call­ing on him to take steps includ­ing end­ing the pol­i­cy of “bro­ken win­dows” polic­ing, which means going after low-lev­el crimes as a means of deter­rence, to keep peo­ple from com­mit­ting more seri­ous offens­es. Other demands includ­ed pas­sage of the “Right to Know” act, which would require offi­cers to tell peo­ple they’ve stopped that they have the right not to con­sent to a vol­un­tary search. De Blasio was host­ing an event at the res­i­dence. Many of those attend­ing kept away from the pro­test­ers, with a few stop­ping to get fliers. On Monday, Timothy Cardinal Dolan got involved. He wrote in the Daily News that it is wrong to demo­nize the may­or and also wrong to be dis­re­spect­ful toward police.
On Saturday, as many as 30,000 peo­ple flood­ed the streets of New York City, even shut­ting down the Brooklyn Bridge call­ing for change to the jus­tice sys­tem. It was a heavy day of demon­stra­tions begin­ning in Washington Square Park in the morn­ing, as thou­sands set off from Lower Manhattan to Midtown dur­ing the heart of hol­i­day shop­ping, where traf­fic screeched to a near stand­still. The marchers then head­ed down to One Police Plaza. Five police offi­cers have been injured in scuf­fles with protesters.
The Associated Press con­tributed to this report.
(cbsnews​.com