Far-Left NYC Council Member Praises Rioters Who Attacked ICE and NYPD Officers
As I reported yesterday, anti-ICE rioters in Brooklyn, New York surrounded a hospital late Saturday night after word quickly spread of ICE agents being inside. Agents had brought a detainee who, after initially resisting arrest, requested medical treatment.
The man who was arrested is Chidozie Wilson Okeke, an illegal alien from Nigeria who has previous arrests for assault and criminal drug possession. Okeke had overstayed his tourist visa for over two years.
“Okeke remained non-compliant during the medical evaluation throwing himself to the floor and screaming. The medical staff cleared him. During the medical evaluation, a significant crowd of anti-ICE agitators gathered at the hospital and became violent. The protestors damaged several ICE vehicles and assaulted ICE officers, resulting in minor injuries to the officers,” the Department of Homeland Security told me.
Videos taken from the scene shows the crowd getting violent as New York City police officers held them back while federal agents moved Okeke into a vehicle. Okeke could be seen acting as dead weight to make it harder to move him, further enraging the rioters. Officers made several arrests in response to the clashes.
It should come as to no surprise that local politicians have blamed the chaos on DHS and ICE, not the rioters.
Brooklyn Council Member Sandy Nurse released a statement where she complained the New York police were coordinating with ICE (by conducting crowd control).
“Thank you to the New Yorkers who dropped everything and showed up to demand ICE out of our neighborhood,” Nurse said.
The City Council Progressive Caucus, which Nurse co-chairs, said in its statement the NYPD’s role in the “violent suppression of a local mobilization against an ICE kidnapping” was unacceptable. In true far-leftist fashion, the caucus called for all charges to be dropped against the arrestees and for the officers who did crowd control to be disciplined.
“ICE is not welcome in our communities. New Yorkers won’t stand by while it parachutes in to wreak havoc and instigate violence. The allegations that NYPD was supporting ICE are deeply serious. We must pass NY4All to end our state’s complicity in this terror campaign,” said New York Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, a democratic socialist.
This is a classic example of how the Left has been operating when it comes to immigration enforcement. It did not matter that the person who was arrested was in the country illegally and had a criminal history, all they saw were ICE agents doing their due diligence and it caused them to react with violence.
Then after the unrest, the local politicians provided cover for the rioters and blamed law enforcement. It seems it never occurs to Democrats that local police would not be needed to intervene if an unruly mob had not gathered with the intent to interfere and attack federal agents.