New York police officers were hit with liquid chemicals and Molotov cocktails during a traffic stop in Brooklyn on Saturday.
When NYPD officers stopped a car on Saturday morning for running a red light, the driver tossed “a chemical” at an officer before “speeding off,” the NYPD wrote on Twitter.
Later, the car was stopped by officers, and the driver “threw a lit Molotov cocktail at cops” and sped off before crashing, said the NYPD.
After the man was arrested, several other Molotov cocktails were recovered, the NYPD wrote.
It’s not clear if the attack is related to the resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests and anti-police rhetoric in the wake of two police shootings in Chicago and Minnesota.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said that anti-police graffiti had appeared in New York City before the attack.
“Words matter. Earlier this week we said that again after graffiti that proclaimed ‘kill cops.’ This morning..a Molotov cocktail thrown at an occupied marked police car,” he wrote in a tweet over the weekend. “Now more than ever is the time to come together, to move forward together.”
Meanwhile, a large NYPD union, the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, released a statement that condemned the attack.
“Make no mistake: this is the environment that our elected officials have created. This is the violent behavior that their anti-police rhetoric has inspired. Until politicians stop encouraging hatred and violence towards police officers, we must be prepared to face such attacks AT ALL TIMES, both on and off duty,” Patrick Lynch, the head of the NYC PBA, wrote in the statement. “Remain alert and back each other up.”
On Friday night and Saturday night, demonstrations, looting, and rioting erupted across several major U.S. cities following the two police shootings.
Rioters in Portland, Oregon, smashed windows at a number of businesses after police fatally shot a man at a nearby park. At the same time, police said that rioters were arrested for setting fires.
In Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, after 20-year-old Daunte Wright was shot by an officer carrying out a warrant on him, agitators tried tearing down fencing surrounding the police headquarters. Around 100 people were arrested, officials said.
Riots and looting incidents also broke out in Oakland, California, where hundreds of demonstrators allegedly assaulted an officer and at least one person, smashed windows, set a car on fire, and engaged in other acts of vandalism, authorities said. No arrests or citations were made.