Car Runs Through ICE Protest in Times Square, Hitting Multiple People
By: Siegrid Tuttle
Tags: Crime, Ice, NYC, NYU, Protest

Car Runs Through ICE Protest in Times Square, Hitting Multiple People

Graphic by Anna Choi.

Around 4:00 p.m. on Friday, December 11, a car plowed through a protest at 39th St. and Third Ave., hitting at least six people, according to the NYPD.

The injured protesters were taken to the hospital in ambulances and their condition is currently unknown. At least one protester was taken to NYU Medical Center and four were taken to Bellevue hospital according to Grace Frutos on Instagram, who was in Bellevue hospital with protestors. She filmed the police entering the hospital to question the injured protestors. She can be heard in her Instagram story saying, “the audacity to come in and question people after the police were there and didn’t do shit to protect us […] fucking unbelievable.”

The protest group had been marching in solidarity with hunger strikers at Bergen County ICE facility in New Jersey, where prisoners have been on strike for 28 days protesting inhumane living conditions.

Graphic via @KatxChen on Instagram

The NYPD, which had been trailing the protest, immediately surrounded the crowd, declared the area a crime scene, and ordered protesters onto the sidewalk. They then arrested at least two protesters who did not vacate the street quickly enough. One was veteran protester Nicky Black.

A journalist who goes by @nycprotestcoverage was banned from the crime scene despite having a press pass, according to his Instagram Live. In the livestream, a cop can be seen pushing him out of the street, saying “It will be a legal order next time” to which the journalist responded, “You don’t even know what the law is.”

Protesters in live streams from @nycprotestcoverage and @madisonstewart were seen in distress, some crying while others cursed at the cops who had failed to protect them from real danger but had arrested their members. Hundreds of cops flooded the streets shoving and threatening protesters.

“Your job is to protect us!” one protester told a cop on an Instagram Live filmed by @madisonstewart. Another said, “You are not important. Why are you even here?”

A cop on the livestream seemed to be laughing, prompting a protestor to respond, “You’re laughing at what? If that was your son or daughter, how would you feel?”

@nycprotestcoverage live-streamed from the site. He stated on his Instagram live at 4:30 p.m. that he thought the driver had been arrested.

According to a video live-streamed by Mark Apolloa on Facebook, the car that “plowed through” protesters was a blue BMW occupied by two women.

The solidarity protest was led by @katxchen and other protesters associated with America On Trial and @riders4rights.

This incident follows multiple other instances of cars plowing down protesters in the past few years, including one in Charlottesville where Heather Heyer was killed in 2017. It also follows multiple similar but nonfatal incidents in New York City over the past few months. On Sept. 3, a car drove through Black Lives Matter protesters in Times Square. On Oct. 4, a car drove into a Riders4rights protest, causing minor injuries. During Black Lives Matter protests this summer there were multiple incidents in which cars drove into protests, including an incident in which an NYPD truck plowed through protesters.