A city Parks cop caught on video violently holding onto a young girl during an attempted arrest in lower Manhattan prompted Mayor Adams to announce two internal probes Monday — one led by the Parks Department and another by the NYPD.
The incident, which has sparked outrage after a video of it was shared online, involved a still-unidentified Parks Police officer wrestling a girl in Battery Park and who already had one handcuff placed on her wrist. She’d been selling fruit with her family, wrote an X user who captured the incident.
As the officer holds her, onlookers attempt to pull the girl away, sending the two tumbling to the pavement, the video shows.
“Where the f— is everybody else?” the cop is heard asking fellow officers after the girl vanishes from the video frame into a crowd.
A day later, Adams confirmed that both the Parks Department and the NYPD would be investigating the matter, given that at least one Police Department officer was at the scene of the incident, as well.
While he acknowledged that the handling of the teen may have seemed “offensive or abusive,” he blamed the situation more broadly on delayed work authorizations for the vast majority of migrants now residing in New York City — a reality he’s criticized for months and which has led some to seek work selling candy on the train and fruit on the street.
Around 2 p.m. Sunday, Parks Enforcement Patrol officers began seizing fruit from unlicensed vendors in Battery Park, according to an agency rep. As Parks cops tried to destroy the food, two people intervened.
A 32-year-old woman was hit with a desk appearance ticket and a teen involved received a juvenile report, a Parks rep said.
“Our Parks Enforcement Patrol’s first course of action is to educate in order to bring violators into compliance,” the spokeswoman said. “When individuals have repeatedly flouted the law, we take additional enforcement actions, and there are instances when it is necessary to place violators and individuals obstructing the law under arrest.”
As of Monday afternoon, the age of the youth involved in the incident was not entirely clear. While Adams referred to her as a 12-year old, the Parks Department issued a statement identifying the girl as 14.
While many online described the girl as a migrant, her immigration status wasn’t known, either.
“No one wants to see a 12-year old handled in a way that can seem offensive or abusive. No one wants to see that,” Adams said at an unrelated press conference in Harlem on Monday afternoon.
“We’re going to continue to get better at what we do, but the larger problem here that no one wants to talk about: it is not dignified to have people unable to provide for themselves. We’ve been saying this for almost two years now — let them work. Illegal vending is not working. It’s illegal, and we don’t want our babies on the trains selling candy.”
A Parks spokeswoman did not identify the officer involved, but said he’s been reassigned to administrative duties.
Adams noted that the area where the incident took place “has received a substantial number of 311 complaints because of illegal vendoring” and that it’s impacting people’s “quality of life.”
“We hear it all the time. People are calling us and saying it gives the appearance that our city is having a level of disorder and anything, everything goes,” he said. “The Park enforcement officers must respond to that. We have to respond to complaints that are coming from citizens.”
Others who viewed the tape offered a much different perspective.
“It was appalling to see police officers — be it Parks or NYPD — trying to handcuff and arrest a 12-year-old little girl for not harming anyone,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition. “And this is just part and parcel of the city continuing to try to criminalize and use law enforcement against low-income and working-class New Yorkers in this really horrible way.”
Mohamed Attia of the Street Vendor Project called the officers’ actions “insane” and “horrendous” and expressed concerns for the child and the possible trauma of being wrestled down by the officers.
“That is unacceptable. But when you look at the broader picture of the street vending system as a whole, and what thousands of vendors deal with every day, that’s the reality,” he said, referring to those who operate without a license or permit, leaving them subject to enforcement crackdowns. “They live in this nightmare.”
