The NYPD arrested 280 people overnight during protests over the death of George Floyd, officials said Wednesday.
The number of arrests was a drastic drop from the 700 the NYPD made Monday night and early Tuesday when cops desperately tried to tamp down rampant looting and arson in both Midtown and the Bronx.
A new earlier curfew of 8 p.m. helped keep some people off the streets Tuesday night. But the order was ignored by thousands of protesters who filled the streets around Gracie Mansion, Trump Tower, Battery Park, Brooklyn’s Barclays Center and the Manhattan Bridge.
Rogue marchers busted windows up and down Broadway hours after the Tuesday curfew — and looted an East Village Footlocker and the boarded-up Zumiez, a high-end skate business that looters also hit on Monday night, on E. 13th St. and Broadway.
Guardian Angels founder and radio-show personality Curtis Sliwa was hospitalized after fighting off looters at the East Village Footlocker.
Out of the 280 taken into custody, it was not immediately clear how many received summonses or were criminally charged and have to go to criminal court, officials said.
The massive arrests on Monday led to long delays at local courts, where defendants have been left crammed together in holding cells as they wait to see a judge.
