Police arrest 34 as pro-Gaza protesters take over Brooklyn Museum | EUROtoday

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New York City police mentioned Saturday that they took 34 folks in custody following a pro-Palestinian protest on the Brooklyn Museum, which reported harm to some art work and harassment to safety workers by demonstrators.

Hundreds of protesters marched to the museum Friday afternoon, arrange tents within the foyer and unfurled a “Free Palestine” banner from the constructing’s roof earlier than police moved in to make arrests.

New York City law enforcement officials tackled and punched some protesters throughout scuffles that broke out within the crowd outdoors the museum whereas some demonstrators hurled plastic bottles at officers and shouted insults. Other protesters held banners, waved Palestinian flags and chanted boisterously on the steps of the grand, Beaux Arts museum, which is town’s second largest.

City police mentioned of the 34 folks detained, six had been arrested and charged with crimes starting from trespassing to assault. Another 23 had been launched after receiving tickets or summonses for misdemeanors together with trespassing, making graffiti, damaging property and resisting arrest. Police didn’t say what occurred to the remaining 5 folks.

Museum spokesperson Taylor Maatman mentioned in an announcement that the museum closed an hour early due to considerations about folks’s security and the artwork collections.

”Unfortunately, there was harm to current and newly put in art work on our plaza, and our public security workers had been bodily and verbally harassed,” Maatman mentioned.

The rally began Friday afternoon throughout the road from the Barclays Center, dwelling of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets. Marchers banging drums and chanting then made their option to the museum a few mile away.

Organizers, together with the group Within Our Lifetime, known as on supporters to “flood” and “de-occupy” the museum, saying they needed to take over the constructing till officers “ disclose and divest ” from any investments linked to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Videos posted on social media confirmed guards on the museum making an attempt to safe its doorways towards the surging crowd and demonstrators discovering different methods inside.

Within Our Lifetime posted on social media that its chair, Nerdeen Kiswani, was “targeted and violently arrested” by police.

New York City has seen lots of of road demonstrations for the reason that battle between Israel and Hamas started in October.

The Brooklyn Museum sits on the fringe of Crown Heights, which is dwelling to one of many metropolis’s largest communities of Orthodox Jews.

The Associated Press contributed to this report