Today was hard. My story: I approached 23-15 39th Ave, Queens, NY 11101 as I was on my path home from spending the afternoon with friends in Long Island City I noted an officer was not wearing a mask while he was within 6’ of other people.

I was just 2 blocks from home when the following incident occurred.

I took his picture at 8:16 pm and he asked why I was taking it. I stated to him that it was required that officers wear masks and he said he was just outside and had no reason to.

Another officer came from inside the building, he also was not wearing a mask, I attempted to take a picture of him, as he struggled to put it on and cover his face.

As he put on the mask, they said I had no right to take their picture and they began to detain me yelling “don’t resist”, I did not resist and was handcuffed. I was then moved to within the hotel on an upper floor via the elevator.

Once we arrived at an upper floor, I was moved to a smaller room. From there my leg was cuffed to a bench. My arms were uncuffed to remove my backpack and then recuffed.

My backpack was went through and I was aggressively searched, including the unbuckling of my belt and removal of my shoes. They forcibly took my phone, removed my face mask and attempted to use use my face to unlock the phone. It was unclear if they were able to unlock it or not

However directly after he put the phone down he made homophobic comments, implying that he had seen homosexual content on my phone, saying there were plenty of women out there to be photographed why was I shooting men, though I was unlikely to get laid anyways.

Following their search where they found nothing they took my ID from my wallet and went to a back room. During this search and the entire time that I was within the hotel, no officer wore a face mask.

A supervising officer named “Diaz” was directing the operation the whole time, clearly the younger officer didn’t have experience in how to deal with a regular person. I asked Diaz what I was being charged with and he never replied.

While I was being held I asked many more times as he walked back and forth between the hallway.

When Officer Coye came back to deal with me, he insisted that he voted for Trump and that he didn’t believe in the BLM movement as statues don’t affect him.

I said that was ok with me, and that was all that we said about our political views.

I then waited handcuffed and leg cuffed to the bench for a prolonged period of time where I asked many times why I was being detained and if I was being charged.

The only answer I got was ‘you will be held as long as we want’.

Once the officer had written the summons he came back and attempted to hand it to me. Of course I was handcuffed so that was useless.

He left it on my knee and then Diaz told him to pack up everything they had taken from my bag. The summons was then tossed into my bag with no explanation of what it was. they then uncuffed me, and instructed me to put my shoes back on.

I put my shoes back on and was walked to the staircase. I was walked outside by officer Diaz and Coye they left my backpack on the sidewalk, as they told me to take it and leave I asked both of them for their business cards, and both of them refused after asking multiple times.

I then took my bag and walked the last few blocks home around 8:55 PM.

I have a court date in November. I won't stop fighting. @nypdmaskwatch @ACLU @placardabuse @A_W_Gordon. Could use some advice on my next steps.