by Matt Agorist, The Free Thought Project:

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio have declared a curfew until Monday, June 8 in response to ongoing protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The latest method of trapping and arresting those breaking the curfew appears to be the use of fake yellow taxis that are actually police cars.

Video circulated last night of the NYPD apparently tricking protestors trying to go home by posing as taxis and then arresting them for breaking the curfew. The images show a man being arrested and put into the back of the vehicle, almost a perfect copy of the iconic New York taxi. A 2016 Freedom of Information Request by journalist Matthew Guariglia found that the city’s police force has a fleet of at least five so-called “cop cabs,” and that the NYPD has been using them since at least 2015.

New York-based magazine the Gothamist put together a checklist of how to spot fake police taxis. Among the most glaring tells include a license plate number beginning with 2W or 6Y, missing plastic center dividers between the driver and backseat and disconnected or fake-looking meters.

THE NYPD IS DISGUISING AS TAXI DRIVERS AND TRICKING PROTESTERS THAT ARE TRYING TO GO HOME!!! SPREAD THIS AND BE SAFE pic.twitter.com/hc4uV3BqXJ

— emel (@taxicabstruce) June 3, 2020

The curfew is the latest strong-armed measure authorities have taken to try to combat the widespread protests over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police last week. Essential workers are supposed to be exempt from the new law requiring New Yorkers to be behind closed doors before 8 p.m. But, in practice, this has not been the case, with many food delivery workers, journalists and others detained.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, the NYPD brutalized 32-year-old African-American hospital worker Rayne Valentine as he was leaving his job, kicking and beating his head in until he lay unmoving in the fetal position. Valentine had to go back to the same hospital he just left for treatment, his co-workers putting seven staples in his head and attempting to stop the bleeding. Valentine suggested that his attackers may have only stopped after they noticed his bloodied hospital identification.

On Thursday night, according to one protestor, police in the Bronx trapped, maced and beat up protestors before curfew had even been started, the panic and terror causing one woman to go into premature labor. Last week, videos surfaced of multiple NYPD cruisers plowing into stationary protestors and driving away rather than helping the fallen. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons admitted that Jamel Floyd, an African-American, diabetic, asthmatic inmate of a Brooklyn jail had been killed by authorities after they pepper-sprayed him in his cell.

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