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Dozens Arrested as NYPD Blocks MLK Day March Outside City Hall

At least 29 people were arrested as police blocked protesters who had taken part in a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. march from Brooklyn to Manhattan from approaching City Hall late on Monday, January 18.

Footage from Jarrett Robertson shows the march beginning from the Barclays Center in Downtown Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, and toward City Hall where they were faced NYPD officers, including many in riot gear, holding batons, or carrying flex-tie handcuffs.

Police made announcements calling for people to leave the roadway and to use the sidewalk before physical confrontations broke out between officers and marchers.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea told NY1- protesters had shut down traffic and were vandalizing the city with graffiti, and another spokesman said officers had been attacked with glass bottles. Police said 11 officers were injured, none seriously, local media reported.

Protesters defended their behavior, telling local media that police had rushed at them unprovoked. One participant told the New York Times that very few of the protesters had stepped onto the road before police began warned that they would be arrested. Credit: Jarrett Robertson via Storyful