1:30 pm Sep. 18, 2012
Around the 2:45 mark in this video, you see City Councilman Jumaane Williams standing on a seat in Liberty Park, and a police officer pushing him, telling him to "get down."
Williams, a vocal critic of the New York Police Department, can be heard saying "I'm a Council member" and "I'm observing."
Williams was pushed off the seat, but immediately returned.
At one point, when Williams is pleading his case to an officer in a white shirt, an officer in a blue shirt who pushed him of the seat pushed him off again.
A few officers converge, Williams identifies himself and the incident quickly dissipates. A few onlookers started chanted "courtesy, professionalism and respect" as they leave the park as other onlookers chant "fuck the police."
After a photo of the incident surfaced last night, Williams' spokesman released a statement to me saying there was a brief altercation, but noting the Councilman wasn't injured or arrested.
Williams, along with another African-American official, was briefly arrested during last year's West Indian-American Labor Day Parade after they entered a restricted part of the parade route.
