Gripe all you want about those lame "fun" sized candy bars handed out at the Bloomberg Manor for Halloween, at least they didn't come with excruciating jets of spicy liquid. MyBlockNYC has a video shot Friday night in Alphabet City on Avenue A at 6th Street that shows Halloween weekend revelers being nonchalantly pepper-sprayed by a NYPD officer, before another tackles two men on the sidewalk.
A few people can be seen jeering at two NYPD officers entering their vehicle. One says, "You are a motherfucker…Way to go. Way to go." That's when both get back out, and one pepper sprays the whole lot with an air of bored nonchalance, as if he's watering the plants.
The man who shot the video tells us he "pretty much turned the corner and caught what was going on…I don't really know what happened leading up to it." Another witness says, Harlem resident Charles Eatman, tells us, "We don't know what started it, something must have just happened before I arrived. And then everyone was running trying not to get maced. They jumped one guy, and you can see three cops on him at once. And about five minutes after this ended, the cops drove away. As far as I know they didn't arrest anybody. But the guy in the video was visibly beat up. And they definitely maced at least a dozen people. Very strange."
We're still awaiting for a response from the NYPD on their version of the events, and will update as we receive more information. But the video raises one obvious question: where were all the Tony Bologna costumes?
