On Saturday, a Connecticut man was arrested after a police chase, with the man throwing bleach and a Molotov cocktail at his pursuing officers, as reported by The Hill.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) confirmed on Twitter that they had recovered multiple unlit Molotov cocktails from the man’s possession upon his arrest, after he had already thrown a single lit one at officers. The man, reported by local news outlets to be Lionel Virgile of Bridgeport, Connecticut, had been pulled over for a traffic stop; when one officer approached his vehicle, he threw bleach in the officer’s face and sped off, throwing the one Molotov out the window at the officers’ vehicles before eventually crashing into another car.
For the act of throwing the Molotov, Virgile already faces a federal charge of arson, but is likely to face further state charges for the bleach assault on the first officer.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea commented on the incident on Twitter, saying that “this is another reminder of how quickly a situation can change and the dangers your cops face every day while they’re protecting NYers. Even after arrest, the investigation into this attack remains active. And your NYPD cops will not relent in their mission to keep you safe.”
The New York City Police Benevolent Association, a police officers’ union, released a statement blaming such an attack on the rise of anti-police rhetoric over the course of the last year, particularly following nationwide race riots by the far-left domestic terrorist groups Black Lives Matter and Antifa. “Make no mistake,” the statement read, “this is the environment that our elected officials have created. This is the violent behavior that their anti-police rhetoric has inspired.”