A never-released internal NYPD report paints a damning picture of the department’s handling of the George Floyd protests in 2020 that led to days of rioting and looting across the city — finding that no single police commander was calling the shots, officers lacked “timely intelligence” in the first days of the unrest, and there was a failure to utilize highly-touted resources to better control the situation.
The report, reviewed by the Daily News, was ordered up by then-Police Commissioner Dermot Shea in the wake of the demonstrations that started on May 27, two days after Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis cops. Some of the protests devolved into riots, looting and vandalism during which more than 400 cops were injured — many in assaults — while scores of protesters accused police of beating them.
The 47-page document praises in many ways how the department, its ranks thinned by the ravages of COVID-19, “stood tall and walked alongside more than a quarter-million people to ensure that their rights to protest were protected.”
