Anarchists plotted on Wednesday to disrupt the Thanksgiving Day Parade — feeling emboldened after cops allowed them to run free on major roadways like the FDR Drive and the West Side Highway, The Post has learned.
“The police aren’t going to arrest us and they are not going to shoot us,” an organizer who calls himself “Magiq” boasted to a group of two dozen rabble-rousers at a Union Square planning session Wednesday night.
The police aren’t going to arrest us and they are not going to shoot us
“They’re walking right by us now with their heads down and their tails between their legs,” Magiq, 27, of Brooklyn taunted as scores of cops watched the group from across 14th Street.
The hashtag #StopTheParade was burning up Twitter as agitators planned a fresh wave of chaos following two nights running amok on city streets to protest the Ferguson, Mo., grand-jury decision.
“Yes, they’re planning on crashing the parade,” a law-enforcement source said. “With this hands-off approach, it gives them free rein to do anything they want. It’s a free pass to act like a fool.”
But they may be in for a surprise, sources said.
“They’re not going to be able to do at the parade what they did at the Brooklyn Bridge. What are they going to do, trample kids to stop a float?” the source said.
That’s not far off, based on the flurry of tweets about causing havoc along the route.
“Don’t let consumerism outshine injustice. Keep the NYC protests going, stomp right over Macy’s thanksgiving parade,” wrote a user named Aleks!
“Stopping the parade would make such a huge statement,” added a user named Luna Koshka, who added, “We can see snoopy next year. But Mike Browns[sic] mother will never see her child again.”
“We feel empowered. We feel rejuvenated right now,” Senegal Mapry, 18, of Manhattan, said during an earlier gathering at Union Square Wednesday.
“The police are backing down because they don’t want to cause any more riots. If they put their hands on another minority, all-out war will break out.”
Sources said Mayor de Blasio ordered the NYPD to give a free ride to the mobs that blocked the Lincoln Tunnel, Brooklyn Bridge and other major thoroughfares Tuesday night.
“It’s coming from City Hall,” a source said. “We’re being told if it’s only traffic violations, don’t do anything.”
“How times have changed. Under [Ray] Kelly and [Mike] Bloomberg, this would never happen,” said another source.
“It’s hands-off police tactics. Welcome to our new world,” yet another source said about the NYPD under Commissioner Bill Bratton.
Just 10 of the estimated 3,000 protesters were busted Tuesday night — a small fraction of the more than 1,800 arrested during the Occupy Wall Street marches and the 2004 GOP-convention uprising.
“The brass didn’t want anyone caught on camera making arrests for fear that someone would scream something,” a source said.
“They also didn’t want to provoke anyone. They don’t want any more bad press, particularly with all these camera-crazy perps trying to get cops into trouble.”
Rank-and-file officers were furious at having their hands tied as the throngs choked traffic.
“We should have made 1,000 arrests,” fumed a cop.
Another cop complained, “If an ambulance had to take the FDR to get to the hospital, what are they supposed to do?”
But de Blasio is on the record saying free speech trumps keeping thoroughfares moving.
“I think the First Amendment is a little more important than traffic,” he told the New York Observer in September after the People’s Climate March.
Of the 10 protesters busted Tuesday, six were given desk-appearance tickets and four were arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court Wednesday night on misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest.
Additional reporting by Amanda Lozada and Natalie O’Neill