A Democrat running for state Senate in The Bronx was pictured carrying a sign with “ACAB,” the acronym for “All Cops Are Bastards,” during a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 — drawing ire from neighborhood activists and an opponent.

Christian Amato, a strategist and community organizer, was spotted holding the anti-cop placard during a 2020 demonstration at the Loreto Playground park in Morris Park, according to a photo, which has recently surfaced on social media.

“It’s laughable that Amato is running for Senate … He’s a weasel beyond belief,” said Bronx resident Wayne Gurman, who snapped the photo Amato at the protest.

Gurman, who runs the Facebook group BRONX STRONG, was attending a “Back the Blue” rally at the park when he saw Amato — a former staffer of State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi — participating in a hastily organized counter-demonstration.

The protesters blared rap group N.W.A.’s song “Fuk Da Police,” Gurman said. A demonstrator standing next to Amato also carried a sign that said “Blue Lives Don’t Matter.”

James Gisondi — a lawyer who is also running in the Democratic primary for NY Senate District 36 — retweeted the photo of Amato and wrote: “An anarchist can’t be a state senator. He doesn’t have the character to be a state senator.”

Amato is seeking to replace his former boss as Biaggi is running for Congress in a district that runs from Riverdale to City Island and takes in parts of Westchester.

Speaking to The Post, Amato admitted to carrying the “ACAB” sign — but insisted he didn’t realize he was holding a cop-hating message when it was handed to him.

“Someone passed me the sign and I didn’t know it said, ‘ACAB.’ I had no clue,” he said. “I totally grabbed the sign in haste.”

Amato said he took part in the counter-protest because he thought it was “tone deaf” to hold a pro-cop rally just days after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which triggered massive demonstrations across the country.

“The officers deserve our respect. But we need our officers to be culturally cognitive,” he said. “When there is social unrest, it is not the best moment to hold an event. You have to read the room.”

Amato also complained that the Blue Lives Matters participants were unruly and angrily confronted and taunted the smaller group of Black Lives matters protesters.

The Bronx Community Board 11 member, and former Broadway producer, was fired from his post as Biaggi’s top deputy in 2019.

He declined to comment on his termination, saying he never got an explanation as to why he was canned, and that he wanted to leave to provide more constituent services.

The controversy over the “ACAB” photo comes a week after The Post’s report on how a candidate for Democratic district leader in Brooklyn, rapper Noah Weston, spewed hateful screeds about police officers in Twitter posts.

Other candidates running for the Senate seat to replace Biaggi include lawyer Miguelina Camilo and Lisa Hofflich, a Vietnamese immigrant who previously worked for US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). The primary is scheduled for June 28.