A group of activists called "Disarm NYPD" gathered at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn Wednesday night for a protest against "systemic racism."
The planned event was expected to have a turnout of hundreds of people to honor and memorialize Revolutionary War heroes, according to reports. Covering their faces with scarves, the activists set one American flag on fire near a grassy area and later near a monument burned a Confederate flag and another American flag in order to show their anger over the death of black men dying in the hands of the American police. Their anger was intensified by the death of nine worshippers earlier this month in a South Carolina church shooting.
The flag-burning ceremony was later interrupted when pro-flag protesters, including 30 members of a Brooklyn-based bikers' club, tried to pull the flag out of the fire. This led to a clash between the two groups who ended up in cursing and shouting at each other. The situation was immediately controlled by policemen who were on the scene all throughout the situation. No arrests ttook place, according to NBC New York.
The tension started earlier this week, when the announcement about the Disarm NYPD's flag-burning plan was spread through social media. It caught the attention of some concerned citizens who went to the original site where the flag burning was planned to stop the protest before it started. But this did not prevent the activists and they moved to the park, where they started burning the flags and the ceremony went on.
"This is our way of starting a conversation about structural racism and white supremacy," one of the protesters said. Meanwhile the flag-lovers said the flag is the symbol of the nation's stability and should not be burned or trampled upon, according to the New York Daily News.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said that the flag-burning group did not have a permit to gather, and if they will be proven to have committed a crime, he and his men will deal with it, according to CBS New York. "This protest is a divisive, disrespectful way to express views and does not reflect the values of our city", said Mayor Bill de Blasio, the station reported.
