New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio defended his daughter on Monday following her arrest during weekend protests and insisted she didn't "commit any violence."
Chiara de Blasio, 25, was taken into custody late Saturday night at East 12th Street and Broadway in Manhattan for alleged unlawful assembly during protests against police brutality.
"I trust my daughter, I've know her her whole life. She's an incredibly good human being," de Blasio told reporters, while not offering specifics on the arrest.
"This is not someone who would ever commit any violence ... she was very clear, she believes she was following the instructions of police officers and doing what they were asking. I'm going to let her speak for herself."
The mayor didn't discuss his daughter's arrest during various meetings with reporters on Sunday. De Blasio claimed that he and wife Chirlane McCray didn't learn about their daughter's arrest immediately.
Protesters, decrying the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis last week, were staged across the nation this past weekend. The neighborhoods around Union Square in Manhattan and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn were among protest hot spots in New York.
"If had know that my daughter was arrested I would have been the first to let the public know," de Blasio said. "I have a 25-year-old adult daughter who lives her own life. She chooses to share information with me if she deems to."
De Blasio said he didn't find out about the arrest until reporters peppered his office with questions about it on Sunday. "The media knew about this before I knew about it," he said.
An image of Chiara de Blasio's arrest report, which included her home address and ID number, was tweeted out by the Sergeants Benevolent Association, a NYPD union that has been a constant critic of de Blasio.
That tweet has since been taken down.
"The SBA did something unconscionable and it's not just because it's my daughter," de Blasio said. "They do this all the time with peoples' privacy."