Photo: AP
Violence broke out at a New York hotel Thursday afternoon when protesters disrupted a speech by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, the New York Times reports.
In the middle of Mr. Erdogan’s speech, delivered in Turkish, a man — one of a handful of protesters — screamed in English: “You’re a terrorist. Get out of my country!” The ballroom at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square instantly erupted, with many attendees chanting Mr. Erdogan’s name to drown out the protesters.
The New York Police Department said about five protesters were “briefly detained.” No arrests were made, and no injuries were reported.
Kathleen Duffy, a spokeswoman for Marriott International’s New York City hotels, estimated that more than 2,000 people had attended the event and said that only “a very small” number had been escorted out.
“It appears that it started when pro and anti demonstrators kind of clashed, and it started a little bit of a physical confrontation,” Stephen P. Davis, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said. “But at that point, the people were separated and broken out and brought out of the venue.”
Mr. Davis cautioned that the understanding of what happened was still preliminary.
A police official, who spoke about the investigation on the condition of anonymity, said it appeared the fight had been instigated by competing protesters, not by Mr. Erdogan’s security forces, who have a history of violent run-ins in the United States.
