Bill De Blasio says he didn’t know his daughter was arrested during protests

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has defended his own daughter over the NYPD by saying she was ‘acting peacefully’ and he is proud of her after she was arrested during a George Floyd protest in Manhattan. 

Chiara de Blasio, 25, was taken into custody on Saturday night after police infiltrated an ‘unlawful assembly’ of about 100 protesters at 12th Street and Broadway in Lower Manhattan. 

A police report obtained by DailyMail.com showed that Chiara was among those arrested for refusing to move off the road and throwing objects at NYPD officers. 

She was arrested at about 10.30pm, which was about an hour before her father publicly urged protesters to disperse. 

Chiara was released from custody at about 8am on Sunday after receiving a desk appearance ticket. 

At a press conference on Monday, de Blasio admitted that he and his wife Chirlane McCray didn’t know their daughter was out protesting on Saturday but were aware she had been involved in protests on Thursday.  

He said they only learned about her arrest when his office was contacted by the media on Sunday. 

‘If I had known my daughter was arrested I would’ve been the first to say something,’ de Blasio said when asked why he didn’t inform the public earlier when he was publicly addressing the protests. 

‘Even though this was a surprise to Chirlane and I, I respect my daughter, I honor her, and I know her heart.’

The Mayor said his daughter had told him she believed she was following police instructions when she was taken into custody.  

‘She was very clear that she believed she was following the instructions of police officers and doing what they were asking… absolutely, she was abundantly clear she was peacefully protesting, not doing anything that would provoke a negative response,’ de Blasio said. 

He added that he admired her for peacefully ‘trying to change something that she thought was unjust.’ 

‘I love my daughter deeply, she believes a lot of change is needed. I am proud of her, that she cared about it so much she decided to go out there and do something about it.’  

The Sergeants Benevolent Association, a NYPD union known for attacking de Blasio, had earlier tweeted out a copy of Chiara’s arrest report. 

Chiara gave 181 East End Avenue – the mayor’s residence at Gracie Mansion – as her address, according to the police report.

It is understood she didn’t tell arresting officers who her father was.  

Her arrest came about an hour before de Blasio urged protesters to disperse.  

‘We appreciate and respect all peaceful protests, but now it is time for people to go home,’ the mayor said at a 11.30pm press conference in downtown Brooklyn.   

‘If you went out peacefully to make a point about the need for change, you have been heard and change is coming in the city. I have no doubt about that. It’s time to go home so we can all move forward.’  

New York City police said that nearly 730 people had been arrested since protests erupted in the city late last week.  

De Blasio did not mention that his daughter had been arrested during either of the two briefings he held about the protests on Saturday night and Sunday morning.   

At the Sunday morning briefing, he said that officers had showed ‘tremendous restraint overall’ during the weekend’s demonstrations and appointed two city officials to review how the protests unfolded and how they were handled by police. 

He also promised an investigation into a video showing two police cruisers lurching into a crowd of demonstrators in a Brooklyn street, knocking people to the ground.  

‘We all better get back to the humanity here,’ de Blasio said.

‘The protesters are human beings. They need to be treated with tremendous respect. The police officers are human beings. They need to be treated with tremendous respect.’

De Blasio also suggested that the protests had been co-opted by ‘people who came to do violence in a systematic, organized fashion’. 

He said that the ‘small’ number of people were motivated by ‘the anarchist movement’ rather than the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis cop knelt on his neck during an arrest on May 25. 

‘They plan together online, they have very explicit rules,’ he said, noting how officers have gotten their teeth knocked out and have been targeted by projectiles.  

‘Some come from outside of the cities, some are from inside the city. Some are from the neighborhoods where the protests take place, some are not. 

‘But what we do know is there is an explicit agenda of violence and it does not conform with the history of this city.’ 

‘Thank God, there was no loss of life, there were no major injuries.’ 

After the news of Chiara’s arrest broke, the NYPD’s Sergeants Benevolent Association tweeted an attack on de Blasio’s handling of the protests. 

‘How can the NYPD protect the city of NY from rioting anarchist when the Mayors object throwing daughter is one of them,’ the SBA said in a tweet. 

‘Now we know why he is forbidding Mounted Units to be mobilized and keeping the NYPD from doing their jobs.’

Chiara graduated from Santa Clara University in 2016 and planned to pursue a career in social work. 

The 25-year-old has been open about how she struggled with drug and alcohol addiction after her father became mayor in 2014. 

Protests in New York City on Sunday descended into chaos with thieves raiding luxury stores, including Chanel, Rolex and Prada in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood.  

It remains unclear if those who smashed up the stores were part of protests against George Floyd’s death, or if they belonged to different groups and were merely taking advantage of the chaos unfolding across the country.

Across New York City on Sunday night, more than 250 people were arrested. Six cops were injured, none seriously, and a man in his twenties was shot in the abdomen after an argument with a different group of young men.

There are growing calls for the National Guard to be mobilized amid increased fears that the violence will continue on Monday night.

Neither Bill de Blasio nor Gov. Cuomo have mobilized the military and say they’ve done enough to warn people of the danger. 

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea on Monday defended the city’s response and said implementing a curfew – as other cities have done – would be useless.