NYPD Clears a Path for Federal Agents on Canal Street With Violent Arrests and Pepper Spray

Dozens of NYPD officers helped clear a path for federal law enforcement in Lower Manhattan on Saturday afternoon, arresting and pepper-spraying demonstrators—and themselves—so that a caravan of unmarked vans carrying masked federal agents could drive out of a parking garage and depart west on Canal Street. 

Around noon, a large crowd of New Yorkers began gathering outside of the parking garage on Howard Street and Centre Street, after a rumor began circulating that federal immigration agents were going to use the garage to stage a raid on Canal Street vendors, similar to the one that occurred a little more than a month ago. 

According to a source with knowledge of federal immigration enforcement plans, that rumor was well-founded, because an immigration crackdown was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, but abandoned shortly before it was slated to begin after demonstrators and vendors caught wind of it. A little after 1 p.m., at least four large white vans with federal license plates, along with a handful of other unmarked vehicles, exited the garage, which is owned by the federal Government Accountability Office. SRG officers in a van as well as officers on foot helped clear the path of protesters who were attempting to stop the vehicles.

But the vans, which were filled with federal law enforcement agents wearing sunglasses and masks, the standard garb of federal agents who have been kidnapping immigrants in the streets and in the courtroom hallways, ran into more resistance as they attempted to drive west on Canal Street. 

Masked and unmasked protesters tossed garbage cans and planters into the street, while others stood in front of the vans until they were shoved aside by NYPD officers. One SRG officer began discharging his pepper spray into the faces of the demonstrators and reporters within range—hitting his fellow officer in the face, and incapacitating him.