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Video: Cops look on as Trump supporters threaten voter with violence

The cops are being accused of letting voter intimidation occur in front of them.

Photo of Samira Sadeque

Samira Sadeque

The two men are seen harassing a voter while a cop just looks on

Two white men were caught on video explicitly intimidating voters in Brooklyn. They threatened at least one voter with physical violence. Two New York Police Department police officers who were present at the scene did not appear to take any action against the men.

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Hilary Shepherd, a poll worker in Brooklyn, posted the video to Twitter Tuesday morning. “I’m a poll worker here in Brooklyn. Here’s the first case of voter intimidation I’ve witnessed,” she wrote alongside the video. 

https://twitter.com/TheHBS/status/1323642387122573314?s=20

“A bunch of little pussies, all of you!” a man wearing a black sweatshirt says to people out of the frame.

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From a distance, the man can be heard saying “antifa” and “motherfucker,” as he stands by a car with Trump flags and gears. 

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In another video, the same man and his friend are seen making misogynistic and homophobic comments. They also make explicitly violent physical threats toward one man, while two NYPD cops at the scene look on. 

City council candidate Whitney Hu posted a two-minute video to Twitter Tuesday morning featuring the same incident. “They’re threatening voters but NYPD waiting for their supervisor,” Hu wrote. 

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https://twitter.com/whitney_hu/status/1323647349525270531?s=20

The video begins with one voter asking an NYPD officer to address a man in red sweatshirt, who is standing on the street, a few feet away from the car, with the Trump flag. His friend, the man in a black sweatshirt as seen in the other video, is in the background. 

“I’m not doing anything illegal,” the man in the red sweatshirt tells a voter.

The man from the first video walks up to them and says to the voter, “Go get some Vagisil, OK,” a reference to the anti-bacterial cream for vaginal infections.

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At first, the voter is confused about the reference. “Take care of your vag; go get some Vagisil,” the man reiterates. “I know, it’s iffy, it hurts.”

“Oh, you wanna grab my pussy? Is that what you’re saying?” the voter responds. “Come grab my fucking pussy.”

“Little gay boy, go away!” the man in the black sweatshirt says.  

One of the officers present at the scene tries to say something to them, and the men refuse to back away. At one point in the video, after the voter calls the Trump supporter “gay,” the Trump supporter challenges him to “come say it to [his] face.”

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“You’re not in my face,” says the Trump supporter, as one officer approaches the voter to try to quiet him. The Trump supporter says, as the officer is standing right next to him, “I’ll put you in the hospital.” 

The person behind the camera immediately asks the officers to address it. “He’s threatening physical violence. Did you hear that?” they ask.

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The officers look on as the other men walk away. One officer says that they are waiting for their supervisor. The woman behind the camera asks, “You heard him threaten violence?”

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The officer denies hearing it before claiming that the Trump supporters “can state whatever he says, but nobody’s gonna put him in a hospital.”

The video has since received more than 30,000 views. According to follow-up tweets, the incident was reported to the election protection service Common Cause NY. It’s not clear what, if any, steps were taken to address the incident.

Shepherd did not immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for further information.

 
The Daily Dot