Cops have been ordered to back off policing a section of Washington Heights where residents attacked officers with bottles while chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot!” over the weekend.
The chant was a reference to the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teen, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo., last month.
The NYPD order, issued after the clash Saturday night, follows a similar directive given to cops in the Staten Island precinct where Eric Garner was killed in a police chokehold.
The city’s expanding “hands-off” policing strategy has some cops upset.
“Police-community relations are becoming more important than public safety,” a law-enforcement source in Washington Heights griped to The Post.
Residents said cops were not seen all day Monday on the block where the clash occurred, at West 164th Street and Amsterdam and Edgecombe avenues.
But those who live in the area said they doubted the cops’ no-policing strategy would last.
“They say they aren’t going to harass us, but in all reality, they’re going to harass us,” a man said. “They’ll be back.”
The block was hosting its annual Love is Love gathering just after 10 p.m. Saturday when the violence erupted and five cops were injured.