NYC Parks Employee Handcuffs Young Girl Selling Fruit, Sparking Chaotic Confrontation

A shock­ing video has emerged show­ing an NYC Parks employ­ee restrain­ing a young girl who was report­ed­ly sell­ing fruit from an unli­censed cart with her fam­i­ly in Bat­tery Park.

The chaot­ic inci­dent sparked out­rage from bystanders who tried to inter­vene and pull the girl away from the employee.

The video, shared on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter), shows the Parks employ­ee grab­bing the child’s hand and plac­ing her in hand­cuffs as angry onlook­ers shout “Let her go!” and “Get a female [work­er].” Some bystanders even attempt to phys­i­cal­ly pull the girl away from the employee.

Dur­ing the scuf­fle, the girl and the Parks employ­ee tum­ble to the ground, but the girl is able to break free and run away. The girl’s moth­er was then report­ed­ly arrest­ed and put into a police car.

Accord­ing to the video’s recorder, Marc Rebil­let, the Parks employ­ees had ini­tial­ly tried to detain the girl and her fam­i­ly for sell­ing fruit from an unli­censed cart. The NYPD also attempt­ed to get involved before the Parks employ­ee took over the situation.

In a state­ment, the New York City Depart­ment of Parks and Recre­ation said its “Parks Enforce­ment Patrol’s (PEP) first course of action is to edu­cate in order to bring vio­la­tors into compliance.” 

The depart­ment added that “when indi­vid­u­als have repeat­ed­ly flout­ed the law, we take addi­tion­al enforce­ment actions, and there are instances when it is nec­es­sary to place vio­la­tors and indi­vid­u­als obstruct­ing the law under arrest.”