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Looters Strike at Macy’s

and the Heart of
Manhattan as City Reels
The mayhem in the central business
district — long an emblem of New York’s
stature — was a new blow to a city
already weakened by the virus outbreak.

Police officers outside Macy’s flagship store in Herald

Square on Monday night after it had been ransacked
by looters. Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

By Christina Goldbaum, Liam Stack and Alex Traub

June 2, 2020
Updated 9:20 a.m. ET

The looters tore off the plywood that

boarded up Macy’s flagship store in
Herald Square, swarming by the dozens
inside to steal whatever they could find
before being chased down by the police.
Others smashed the windows at a Nike
store, grabbing shirts, jeans and zip-up
jackets. They crashed into a Coach store,
vandalized a Barnes & Noble, ransacked
a Bergdorf Goodman branch and
destroyed scores of smaller storefronts
along the way.

The eruption of looting in the central

business district of Manhattan — long an
emblem of the New York’s stature and
prowess — struck yet another blow to a
city reeling from the nation’s worst
coronavirus outbreak.

The mayhem late on Monday night and

into the early morning marred otherwise
peaceful protests conducted by
thousands of people across the city in the
wake of the death of George Floyd, and it
touched off a new crisis for Mayor Bill de
Blasio.

Beginning Monday afternoon and

growing wilder as night fell, small bands
of young people dressed mostly in black
pillaged chain stores, upscale boutiques
and kitschy trinket stores in Midtown
Manhattan, as the police at first
struggled in vain to impose order.

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Within hours, the normally vibrant center

of wealth and upscale retail had
descended into an almost clichéd vision
of disorder: Streets were speckled with
broken glass and trash can fires. Bands of
looters pillaged stores without regard for
nearby police officers. The screech of
sirens echoed between skyscrapers.

By the early morning hours, a sense of

lawlessness had set in.

After a weekend filled with shocking

scenes of looting, scuffles between the
police and protesters and destruction of
police cars, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and
Mr. de Blasio announced Monday
afternoon that they would deploy twice
as many police officers and impose an 11
p.m. curfew.

There was widespread damage to stores in the heart

of Manhattan. Demetrius Freeman for The New York
Times

The curfew succeeded in ending most of

the peaceful protests before midnight. As
for the looters, it seemed only to
embolden them to start earlier in the day.
Even before the curfew took effect, the
mayor announced Monday night that the
curfew on Tuesday would begin at 8 p.m.
Protest organizers adjusted their
schedules accordingly, timing Tuesday’s
demonstrations to begin earlier in the
afternoon; at least two were to begin in
Manhattan before noon.

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On Monday, protesters sometimes

deputized themselves to stop the
destruction and stealing. When one
group shattered the windows of an Aldo
shoe store in the afternoon, protesters
rushed forward to push them away from
the store, pulling one young man out of
the broken window as he tried to climb
inside.

“Stop doing this!” one distraught woman

yelled, her friends holding her back as
she lunged toward the looters. “George
Floyd’s brother said not to do this! That
is not what this is about!”

Several reporters and photographers for

The New York Times witnessed
numerous scenes of people setting upon
storefronts all across Midtown. The
police at first appeared outnumbered
before eventually massing
reinforcements and making arrests.

The mayor and police commissioner have

attributed some of the violence during
the protests to unidentified groups from
outside the city and state, but there did
not seem to be evidence of that overnight.

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The Police Department is expected to

release information about arrests late
Tuesday morning.

The mayhem was perhaps most serious

at Macy’s flagship on 34th Street, one of
the largest department stores in the
world. Video showed scenes of chaos as
fires burned on the street and looters
began gathering in front of one of the
blocked entryways.

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One man repeatedly kicked the plywood

as cheers erupted from other looters.
When the door was broken, people raced
inside, followed later by police officers
dashing through the aisles, trying to
catch them.

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The Police Department confirmed on

Tuesday morning that many looters had
made it inside Macy’s and that
“enforcement action” had been taken.

At a Nike store, dozens of people, mostly

teenagers, broke in the front glass and
entered the store, grabbing jeans, jackets
and other apparel as the security alarm
blared. Looters scurried in and out of the
store, blanketing the sidewalk in empty
hangers, while crowds of protesters
berated them from the street.

“That’s not what this is about!” one group

chanted.

Several minutes later, police sirens could

be heard in the distance. But when
officers arrived, they were too late: both
the looters and the protest march they
had splintered away from were long
gone.

Police officers deployed in Times Square. Chang W.

Lee/The New York Times

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As Midtown drained of demonstrators,

more swarms of marauders poured into
the streets, smashing shop windows and
rushing through already broken-into
buildings.

As they hopped from store to store, they

grabbed clothing and tried to grab
jewelry from lockboxes. But many high-
ticket items were left untouched. On Fifth
Avenue, a crowd smashed the window of
a Camper shoe store, but did not take the
pair of $800 sneakers advertised
prominently by the entrance.

A different group shattered the windows

of a boutique tea shop, leaving a traffic
cone hanging, nose out, through a hole in
one of its windows. But they disturbed
almost none of its merchandise, creating
a surreal scene of smashed glass and
delicate, carefully preserved tea sets —
their bright red cups and saucers
balanced in an avant-garde display.

It seemed for some that the desire to

steal was less alluring than the thrill of
destroying and, with few police officers
cracking down, relishing in a powerful
feeling of impunity.

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An Urban Outfitters store in Herald Square was

ransacked on Monday night. Demetrius Freeman for
The New York Times

Along Broadway, roving bands of young

people dashed between destroyed stores
and biked freely along the empty roads.
Even as rows of police vans flanked the
surrounding streets, the looters seemed
to know that they were winning the game
of cat and mouse with the police.

“They’re looting, causing damage, they

didn’t come here to protest,” said one
security guard on Broadway between
37th and 38th Streets, who declined to
give his name. “One kid flashed his knife
at me. It’s just a bunch of kids, no adults.”

Around 9 p.m., the guard watched as

looters shattered the storefront at an
Urban Outfitters two blocks away. The
group then tore through the store,
leaving hangers, clothes and display
stands strewn across the floor in their
wake.

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An hour later — while the police stood

within sight — people peered in to assess
what merchandise was left. One man in a
red sweatshirt jumped through a
shattered glass panel and emerged
seconds later with two large boxes in his
hands.

On Fifth Avenue, Cartier, Gucci, Versace,

Armani, Zara, and Salvatore Ferragamo
had all armored their stores with
plywood to protect against the swelling
theft.

Others were frantically trying to do so,

even as the looting wore on: At 10:45 p.m.
outside a Santander Bank on 35th Street,
construction workers sawed pieces of
wood and boarded up the bank as small
groups of young people passed them on
the street and rummaged through
already shattered stores.

On Seventh Avenue, Heidi Murga, 34,

watched as a group of people broke into a
FedEx store. After the looters dispersed,
Ms. Murga, who works as a broker and
lives in Midtown, decided to stand guard
outside the store to ward off other bands
of looters.

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People placed in custody for looting. Chang W.

Lee/The New York Times

“I’m just going to stand here and pretend

it’s my store, it’s what I can do,” she said.
“This is not protest, this is violence,
completely.”

She added: “I don’t like this at all, this is

not the city I moved to.”

By the time the citywide curfew went into

effect at 11 p.m., the mood had darkened:
an air of anarchy seemed to metastasize
across Midtown.

Just after 11, a group of looters

approached Madison Jewelers on
Broadway, where the glass storefront lay
shattered, and forced open the store’s
metal gate. With the store alarm blaring,
young men foraged inside and dozens of
others rushed to the scene. When an
unmarked police car with its lights on
passed the scene, it paused briefly — and
then continued down 37th Street.

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“This way! This way!” one looter yelled.

Minutes later, two police officers on

bicycles sped toward the crowd, sending
people fleeing down Broadway. The cops
threw one man to the ground, but as they
hand-tied him, another man in a gray
sweatshirt pelted two large rocks at the
officers before he was chased away.

An hour later, around 200 people flooded

into Seventh Avenue chanting expletives
about the curfew. As they approached
two police vans, the cars pulled away —
prompting a wave of applause from the
crowd.

“If you want to peacefully protest, stay

inside!” one young man bellowed through
a megaphone. “If you want to do
whatever you want, stay out here.”

When the group happened upon a New

York-themed gift shop whose storefront
had already been smashed open, they
ransacked the store once again. As they
tore through the merchandise, one
person lobbed a Statue of Liberty figurine
outside.

It landed, fractured, in the street.

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