Concert goers at a Lower East Side rap show are saying cops got rough with them as they left the club early this morning.
People attending the Smif N Wessun and Pete Rock album release party at Tammany Hall and Orchard said they left a fun evening at the music hall to find the entrance surrounded by uniformed cops.
“I went outside to send a text to a friend and already the cops were there,” said music photographer Natalie Saidon, 28, of Chelsea.
Saidon said she saw cops forcibly take one man away from the crowd.
“They were dragging one guy around and throwing him against a car and against the trash,” said Saidon.
Witnesses said that cops sprayed mace into the crowd, hitting Lance Barrett in the right side of his face as he was leaving the club.
“It was chaos. There was no melee inside the club. Everyone was just chilling,” said Barrett, 19, of Park Slope.
“This did not have to happen,” said Kenneth J. Montgomery, 38, a criminal defense attorney from Brooklyn.
A uniformed cop was taken to an undisclosed hospital with facial injuries, according to authorities. It was unclear how he injured himself, or what condition he was listed in.
Employees at Tammany Hall refused to speak to a reporter at the scene.
Cops did not explain why there was an increased police presence at Tammany Hall, or if there were any arrests.