#De Blasio welcomes City Hall protest, says NYPD will behave

Mayor Bill de Blasio said he’ll allow an encampment of a park outside City Hall by protesters demanding $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD’s budget, while assuring New Yorkers that cops are well-suited to enforce public safety rules.

“On the park, look this is a city that for generations that has respected the right of people to peacefully protest,” de Blasio said Wednesday at his daily press briefing from City Hall.

“But again has to be done safely, has to be done with rules that make sense and so NYPD will address the situation. They’re very familiar with how to handle something like this the right way, respect people’s rights but also make sure public safety and other public needs are addressed,” he said.

“They’ll work this through as the days go ahead,” he added.

De Blasio expressed confidence in the NYPD’s ability to handle the protesters even as his own administration and the state’s attorney general investigate the department’s use-of-force against Big Apple demonstrators in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

About 100 anti-cop protesters with the groups VOCAL-NY and New York Communities for Change occupied a grassy area outside City Hall Park, off of Center Street, starting Tuesday night.

Organizers said they are ready to camp out through June 30, the day before the City Council’s deadline to approve the 2021 fiscal year budget.

While Speaker Corey Johnson and other City Council leaders have embraced the “Defund Police” movement, calling for the $1 billion in cuts, both de Blasio and NYPD leadership have rejected the figure as too high.

The encampment is similar to Seattle’s “CHOP” protest zone that Mayor Jenny Durkan has vowed to dismantle following two weekends of shootings — as well as New York’s own Occupy Wall Street movement where demonstrators lived in a Financial District plaza for three months to protest inequality.

The NYPD eventually evicted the protesters from Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park during a nighttime raid in 2011, but the crackdown spurred a spate of costly lawsuits against the city.