Nypd officer charged and arrested for shoving female protestor

Brooklyn, NY-The Brooklyn cop who shoved a woman to the ground during a George Floyd protest is being arrested and charged.

A video went viral of Vincent D’Andraia pushing Dounya Zayer, 20, when she didn’t get out of the street. The incident happened on May 29 near the Barclays Center. Zayer hit her head on the pavement and was hospitalized.

Cellphone video showed him knocking the victim, Dounya Zayer, 20, to the ground and calling her a “bitch” after she asked him why he told her to get out of the street.

D’Andraia works out of the Brownville’s 73 Precinct. He surrendered himself on Tuesday at the 84th Precinct station house.

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office plans to charge him with misdemeanor assault and harassment.

He is the first NYPD officer who has been arrested because of the protests.

Officer D’Andraia and another officer involved in a separate incident were suspended without pay last week after investigators concluded they had violated department policies and recommended disciplinary charges. The second officer, who has not been named publicly, was recorded snatching off a man’s mask and pepper-spraying him during a protest on May 30 in Brooklyn.

Prosecutors may charge as many as 40 other officers, law enforcement officials said, as the police, district attorneys, and lawmakers face intense pressure to change a status quo that for decades has largely allowed police officers accused of assault or other violent acts on duty to avoid serious punishment.

Police and prosecutors have said they are investigating several other incidents of police using violence against protesters after they were recorded on video, and a civilian oversight agency that investigates police misconduct said it has received hundreds of complaints since the protests started.

Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the Police Benevolent Association said, “They created the failed strategy for maintaining these demonstrations,” he said. “They sent police officers out to do the job with no support and no clear plan. They should be the ones facing this mob-rule justice.”