This story was co-reported with THE CITY.
Democratic Councilmember Susan Zhuang received a hero’s welcome in her Bensonhurst district Thursday afternoon, a day after she allegedly bit a police officer in a scuffle with NYPD officers during a protest against a forthcoming homeless shelter.
She entered the standing-room-only press conference Thursday afternoon at a senior center four blocks away from the site of the forthcoming shelter to cacophonous applause and chants of her name. A child handed her a bouquet of flowers.
Zhuang decried what she called “police brutality” during arrests a day earlier, while making no mention of the second-degree assault charges she now faces for allegedly biting an officer, for which she’s due back in court on Oct. 15.
“I have no doubt to support NYPD as always,” Zhuang, who was endorsed by the Police Benevolent Association over the Republican she ran against last fall, said, speaking to the rapt audience. But she added that she thought police officers treated demonstrators, which included many elderly Bensonhurst residents, with brutality a day earlier.
“All those involved should face full accountability for their conduct,” she said.
The forthcoming homeless shelter that sparked Wednesday’s protest is expected to house 150 single adults and would be the first and only shelter in the South Brooklyn council district, city officials have said. With more than 120,000 people living in hundreds of facilities across the five boroughs, the city’s homeless shelter system is bursting at the seams, officials have repeatedly warned.
Zhuang, a right-leaning Democrat, has allied herself closely with law enforcement during her first year in office. She is also a member of the “common sense caucus,” which includes all the Council’s Republicans.
But while the rest of the city’s political class grappled with the seeming dissonance of one of the NYPD’s staunchest supporters in the council accused of violently biting an officer, the reception by her Chinese American constituents in Bensonhurst was stronger than ever.
Zhuang described said officers approaching her from behind and putting her in handcuffs, with one “pulling her hair” while another “grabbed my neck.”
One supporter said she understood why Zhuang had allegedly bit the officer given her hands were behind her back.
“All those officers were grabbing your hands, you had no choice but to use your mouth. What else could you do to resist?” said Joanne Chen, 58, speaking in Mandarin, who was present at the protest a day earlier and showed bruises on her arms from police grabbing her. “Susan is our hero. She truly represents the voice of our community,”
Her attorney, Jerry Goldfeder, declined to comment further, citing the ongoing legal proceedings.
A spokesperson for the NYPD didn’t return a request for comment immediately. Chief of Patrol John Chell spoke about the arrests at an unrelated press conference Wednesday, saying an elderly woman had laid down under a police barricade in protest. Police asked her to leave, but she said she wasn’t feeling well so they called an ambulance. That’s when, Chell said, demonstrators started pushing barricades, which triggered police to begin making arrests.
Mayor Eric Adams’ office didn’t return a request for additional comment immediately, though he’d been asked about the situation during press appearances earlier in the day.
“I like Susan. I’m going to reach out to her,” the mayor told Fox5 New York. “You can protest peacefully, but there’s no excuse for biting an officer.”
Reacting to the mayor’s response, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said she doubted the mayor would treat more progressive members of the body with “the same level of grace.”
‘She Saved My Life’
Eyewitnesses gathered in support of Zhuang Thursday afternoon described a protest that quickly escalated out of control after an elderly woman had fallen below a police barricade, while the crowd tried to free her.
Yu Xin Chen, 78, identified herself as the woman seen in the video footage who was under the barricade, and said she had fallen under the barricade and was trapped underneath. She showed a large purplish bruise on her right knee and her left hand that she sustained while trying to free herself. Speaking in Cantonese, Chen said she thanked Zhuang, who had tried to get her loose along with others.
“She saved my life,” she said. “She is a hero.”
Another demonstrator Tony Yang, 19, said he was grabbed and slammed to the ground for using a bullhorn.
“There was excessive force,” he said. “They forced me down. They were pulling from five different directions.”
The shelter, which is supposed to open later this year, has sparked months of protests in Bensonhurst and at City Hall, and has been a flash point in the newly drawn Asian opportunity district in South Brooklyn, where the electorate has shifted increasingly to the right over issues of crime and education in recent years.
“Our community has always supported the police,” said John Chan, the chairman of the Asian American Community Empowerment (BRACE), in Mandarin. “We were very disappointed yesterday and we shed tears.”
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