[MAIL] Nearly a thousand protesters took to the streets of Brooklyn to demonstrate against the NYPD's recent actions and planned cracking down on New York City subway fare evaders. The protesters started gathering in Downtown Brooklyn near Barclays Center at about 7pm Friday, with their signs reflecting the dual nature of the march.
While flashier banners bore slogans such as 'Don't let these pigs touch us,' 'F**k the police,' 'Punch that cop' and 'NYPD out of MTA,' other signs read 'Free transit,' 'Poverty is not a crime' and 'Our subways need more $ for elevators, not for cops.'
The demonstration was said to have been brought on by two headline-grabbing incidents that occurred on October 25, which drew accusations of excessive force by police, as well as Gov. Andrew Cuomo's recent decision to add 500 new officers to NYPD's force to patrol the transit system and root out fare evaders.
Over the course of the two-hour protest, participants blocked traffic, shouted obscenities at nearby officers, jumped the subway turnstile en masse and committed acts of vandalization.
One group of protesters was seen surrounding a MTA bus, vandalizing it with stickers and writing anti-police graffiti on it, while passengers were aboard, according to the New York Post.
Passengers told the newspaper that the demonstrators were 'banging on the bus' and that one 'kid with a white mask and a hoodie' used a marker to scrawl graffiti - 'F**k NYPD' and 'NYPD KKK' - on the bus.
'I’m not gonna lie, it was scary,' a passenger said after getting off the bus.