Mayor Adams: Park police mistreatment of fruit vendor triggers investigation

A city park police officer was caught on video violently restraining a young girl during an attempted arrest in Lower Manhattan. Mayor Adams announced Monday two internal investigations – one led by the parks department and another led by the New York Police Department.

The incident, which sparked outrage after a video of it was shared online, involved an as-yet-unidentified park police officer wrestling with a girl in Battery Park who already had a handcuff on her wrist. She had been selling fruit with her family, wrote an X user who filmed the incident.

While the police officer is holding her, bystanders try to pull the girl away, causing the two to fall to the sidewalk, the video shows.

“Where the hell are the others?” the police officer can be heard asking his colleagues after the girl from the video image has disappeared into the crowd.

A day later, Adams confirmed that both the park administration and the New York Police Department were investigating the case, as at least one police officer was also at the scene of the incident.

While he acknowledged that the treatment of the girl may have seemed “insulting or abusive,” he more broadly blamed the delays in obtaining work permits for the vast majority of migrants currently living in New York – a situation he has criticized for months and which has led some to seek work selling candy on trains or fruit on the street.

Around 2 p.m. Sunday, Parks Enforcement Patrol officers began confiscating fruit from unlicensed vendors in Battery Park, a department official said. When park police officers attempted to destroy the food, two people intervened.

A 32-year-old woman received a ticket and one of the juveniles involved was charged with juvenile delinquency, a park official said.

“The first action of our Parks Enforcement Patrol is to educate the lawbreakers so that they follow the rules,” the spokeswoman said. “If individuals have repeatedly broken the law, we take additional measures and there are cases where it is necessary to arrest lawbreakers and law-breakers.”

As of Monday afternoon, the age of the juveniles involved in the incident was not entirely clear. While Adams described her as a 12-year-old, the parks department issued a statement identifying the girl as a 14-year-old.

Although the girl was described by many on the Internet as a migrant, her immigration status was also unknown.

“Nobody wants to see a 12-year-old treated in a way that could be offensive or abusive. Nobody wants to see that,” Adams said at an independent press conference in Harlem on Monday afternoon.

“We will continue to improve what we do, but the bigger problem that no one wants to talk about is that it is undignified when people are unable to take care of themselves. We have been saying this for almost two years now – let them work. Illegal selling doesn’t work. It is illegal and we don’t want our babies selling candy on trains.”

A spokeswoman for the park administration did not name the official involved, but said he had been assigned administrative duties.

Adams pointed out that in the area where the incident occurred, “a significant number of 311 complaints of illegal street trading have been received” and that this is affecting people’s “quality of life”.

“We hear this all the time. People call us and say it seems like there is a certain level of disorder in our city and anything, anything is possible,” he said. “Park rangers have to respond to that. We have to respond to complaints that come from citizens.”

Others who saw the tape had a very different perspective.

“It was horrifying to see police officers – whether Parks or NYPD – attempt to restrain and arrest a 12-year-old girl when she had done no harm to anyone,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition. “And this is just part of the city’s attempts to continue to criminalize low-income and working New Yorkers and use law enforcement against them in this really horrific way.”

Mohamed Attia of the Street Vendor Project described the officers’ actions as “insane” and “horrific” and expressed concern for the child and the potential trauma that could be caused if he was wrestled to the ground by the officers.

“This is unacceptable. But when you look at the bigger picture of the street vending system and what thousands of traders have to deal with every day, this is the reality,” he said, referring to those who operate without a license or permit and are therefore subject to rigorous action. “They live in this nightmare.”