Protester Pepper-Sprayed In Brooklyn Sues NYPD, De Blasio: Suit

BROOKLYN, NY — An NYPD officer who pulled down a protester's mask and pepper sprayed him in the face in Brooklyn last year was enabled by the city's complicity in a long history of violent policing, a new lawsuit claims.

Andrew Smith — who was pepper sprayed during one of the first New York City protests following the murder of George Floyd — filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio, several high-ranking officers and Officer Michael Sher, the cop who attacked him, his lawyers announced.

The lawsuit claims Sher's attack not only violated Smith's right to free speech and discriminated against him because of his race, but was part of a pattern of excessive force used by the NYPD on protesters that the city failed to curtail.

“In the words of Frederick Douglass, ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand,’" Alain Massena, one of Smith's attorneys said. "Today, in filing this lawsuit against the City, we demand justice on behalf of Andrew Smith and for all that have been victimized by the overly aggressive and oppressive tactics of the NYPD."

Tuesday's lawsuit comes nearly a year after a video of Smith's attack — since viewed more than 11 million times online — first made headlines in the days following the May 30 protest.

Smith had been among a group of protesters walking backwards with their hands up near Bedford Avenue and Tilden Street when Sher snatched the mask from his face and shot him with the pepper spray, according to the lawsuit and video.

"Mr. Smith had an immediate and serious adverse reaction to this attack: he clutched at his burning eyes, blinded and in pain, as he stood frozen in agony before another peaceful protester came to his aid," the lawsuit reads, adding that Sher bypassed other protesters surrounding Smith, most of whom were white.

Sher was later heard in body camera footage bragging to his fellow officers about the attack.

He was suspended without pay in the days following the attack but there have been no criminal charges filed against him, according to reports.

Smith's lawsuit points to several other incidents of police violence during both the George Floyd protests and demonstrations from the last two decades, including several that have also resulted in lawsuits.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, the city's own Department of Investigation and human rights groups have all faulted the NYPD to some extent for their violent response to the largely peaceful protesters, the lawsuit notes.

James found that between May 28 and June 7, there were more than 2,000 protest-related arrests, averaging 190 per day, along with indiscriminate pepper spraying and other excessive force at the hands of police, according to the report.

“This case demonstrates the physical and emotional harm that resulted from the NYPD’s decision to send a phalanx of armed police officers to ‘control’ already peaceful protesters," Omavi Shukur, Practitioner-in-Residence at the Initiative for a Just Society said about Smith's lawsuit. "Despite having had his hands in the air to signal that he was demonstrating peacefully, Mr. Smith was subjected to the racialized police violence he was protesting against.”

A spokesperson for the city's law department said Wednesday that it will review the case once "all the facts are in."