A New York City councilwoman faces assault charges after a heated protest at the Brooklyn site of a proposed men’s homeless shelter at which, the authorities say, she bit a police chief.
A crowd of protesters clashed with officers around 6 a.m. Wednesday on 86th Street in Bensonhurst, with video showing dozens of people waving American flags and crowding an intersection. Several rushed officers and barricades.
In the midst of the skirmish, one arm handcuffed, fighting with officers over a barricade, was the councilwoman, Wenyi Susan Zhuang.
Ms. Zhuang, 38, prevented officers from getting close to a woman who was on the ground by shoving barricades into them, the police said. When officers initially tried to arrest Ms. Zhuang, she bit a chief, twisted and pulled away, they said.
The councilwoman, whose district covers swaths of southern Brooklyn, including Sunset Park, Dyker Heights and Mapleton-Midwood, was arrested and charged with second-degree assault, third-degree assault, resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration.
Ms. Zhuang did not immediately respond to a request for comment at a phone number listed for her. Her office also had not responded to messages by Wednesday afternoon.
Ms. Zhuang, a Democrat in her first term, is one of 51 City Council members and beat a Republican last year to win her seat, according to the council’s website. She was born in China and came to America as an international student in 2008.
In a statement posted online, Patrick Hendry, the head of New York City’s police officers’ union, said he was “shocked by the reported violence.”
“Councilmember Susan Zhuang has been a steadfast supporter of police officers during her time in the Council,” he said. “There is never any excuse or justification for assaulting a police officer. There should be no double standard in this case.”
The protest was in response to a city plan to turn a 6,000-square-foot building in Gravesend into a new men’s homeless shelter. The proposed shelter, which drew swift backlash from residents, could house up to 150 men.
In a post on social media, Ms. Zhuang shared a video of a white-shirted police supervisor speaking to protesters at the site of the shelter at 5:54 a.m. on Wednesday. “Is the mayor above the law?” says the person holding the camera, presumably Ms. Zhuang, as others demand to see a permit for work being conducted at the site.
“There is no permits,” the councilwoman wrote. “Mayor office allowed construction at 5 am in our neighborhood.”
Earlier this week, in another social media post, Ms. Zhuang cited a New York Post report that said arrests near city shelters doubled in 2024, saying “This is exactly why we should not build shelter next to our schools, day care centers, senior centers!!!”
Community resistance against building shelters is not new. At precinct council meetings with the police across the city, residents have voiced concerns about homeless people living in their neighborhoods.
In 2022, after complaints about putting a 94-bed shelter in a closed hotel at a busy Chinatown intersection, the city backtracked. Last year, Bronx community boards said that their neighborhoods were being disproportionately chosen for homeless shelter locations.
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