New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang was pursued by angry protestors who decried Yang’s libertarian leanings in the city election and his professed plans to increase the number of police in the city, Politico reports.
The day after a debate between the three top candidates, Yang headed to the Park Slope YMCA – the gym preferred by incumbent mayor Bill DeBlasio – when he was followed by dozens of members of New York Communities for Change, causing Yang to turn around and move briskly in the other direction, media in tow. While Yang tried to make his prepared statements on the go but was drowned out by the shouts and jeers of the protesters calling him a “hedge fund manager” and a “Republican.”
“We have been fighting for this city for many years, from fast food, raising the minimum wage, all this stuff. We have never seen Mr. Yang. In all this 16 years, I have been out on the streets fighting. I have never seen Mr. Yang until he was running for president,” said LeRoy Johnson, a 58-year-old Jamaican immigrant who is the chair of the organization’s Flatbush chapter. “We need a mayor who understands the city, you understand? We need someone who understands the people.”