Video: NYPD Pelted With Bottles In Clash With Crowd Angry Over Arrest

NEW YORK CITY — A viral video shows NYPD officers being pelted with glass bottles amid a clash with an angry crowd in The Bronx.

The video taken Sunday during a Dominican Day gathering near 168th Street and Sheridan Avenue quickly became a Rorschach test of sorts.

On one side, police unions such as the Detectives' Endowment Association and the Police Benevolent Association released statements casting it as a sign of growing lawlessness in New York City.

"The politicians can keep ignoring the emboldened criminals they’ve created with NY’s NO-CONSEQUENCE laws — but the voting public and cops who serve them are in danger," the detectives' union tweeted.

But others saw police as reaping the consequences of decades of discrimination and dehumanizing treatment toward the communities they're sworn to protect and serve.

"Y’all own fault," one Twitter user posted. "Lost the trust of the public & now y’all mad at being treated how y’all treated minorities. Cut it out. Do better."

The video posted by Zeek Arkham, a police officer and podcaster, shows cops arresting a man as a crowd films and confronts them.

Cops then throw another man to the ground for reasons that aren't clear in the video. A swarm of police officers appear to constrain and handcuff him, while the chaos escalates.

"Back up," one officer repeats as the first bottles fly and he confronts a man in a yellow shirt before shoving him.

The man in the yellow shirt then appears to take a swing at the officer, but the rest of their confrontation isn't caught on video.

What the video does show is a handful of cops standing on a street corner as bottles fly at them.

Many Twitter users saw the whole incident as a matter of disrespect, but they differed sharply on which way it originally flowed.

"Ridiculous how bad the disrespect for law enforcement is… and those in power just turn a blind eye!" tweeted @james_trudden.

"Release the body cam footage and let’s see how much courtesy, professionalism and respect the Cops showed up with," @HorizonUnItd tweeted.