NYPD says 303 police vehicles damaged since George Floyd’s death, costing department $1m

At least 303 department cars and vans have been damaged in recent months

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has announced that 303 of its vehicles have been damaged since the death of George Floyd on 25 May.

On Monday, the department announced that the cost of the damage to police vehicles totalled nearly $1m, (£773,835), according to the Associated Press.

The department claims that of the 303 vehicles, 14 have been written off due to fire damage, seven are still being repaired and the rest are back in use.

Protests that broke out last month in Minneapolis quickly spread to the every state across the US following Mr Floyd’s death on 25 May while in the custody of a then Minneapolis police officer.

Demonstrators clashed with police during the protests in opposition to police brutality against African Americans in the first few weeks and several cars were damaged and set alight, while multiple officers were filmed using excessive force.

Some protesters in late May and early June were arrested for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at NYPD police cars and their cases are still pending in federal court.

One of those demonstrators, 31-year-old lawyer Urooj Rahman, has been accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail into a police car on 30 May, but is currently on bail pending trial.

The protests have been relatively peaceful recently, but last week, the NYPD’s chief of department Terence Monahan and several other officers were injured during anti-police and pro-police demonstrations on Brooklyn Bridge.

In response to the incident, officers cleared an encampment in front of New York’s City Hall, which began as a protest spot against police brutality, that the department claimed had recently turned into a place for homeless people to gather, according to the New York Times.

Vehicles are still being damaged in the city and in Manhattan on Saturday a man used a protest sign to bash in the window of a police car, while another person wrote graffiti on a department van.

Three vehicles in total were damaged during the incidents, but the department confirmed that no officers were injured.