The D.C. Police Union and Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen had a heated online exchange Thursday, following a press release from the union about the recent protests at the Fourth District station.

Protests have been ongoing around Georgia Ave NW since the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown and the release of police body cam footage of the police pursuit and Hylton-Brown’s fatal crash last Friday in Brightwood Park.

In the footage, a police cruiser is seen moving at increasing speeds, closely following Hylton-Brown down an alley as he rides a Revel moped without a helmet. Hylton-Brown exits the alley on the 700 block of Kennedy Street NW and collides with a passenger vehicle driving on Kennedy Street. Hilton was taken to a hospital and died of his injuries three days later, multiple outlets reported. The officer was later identified as Terence Sutton.

Hylton-Brown’s family and friends have said they believe the MPD officers who gave chase are responsible for his death. Officers tried to stop Hylton-Brown because he was not wearing a helmet, per a press release from the department. MPD policy does not allow officers to chase vehicles unless “the suspect fleeing poses an immediate threat of death and serious bodily harm” to the police or the public, or unless there is probable cause to believe the person committed a violent felony.

In a statement about the ensuing demonstrations, the police union’s chairman Gregg Pemberton described the protestors as a “riotous group” and specifically called out Allen and the city government for policies that caused “significant risk and injury to our members.”

“The city is now refusing to allow officers to wear protective helmets, allowing rioters to fire deadly explosives at officers, and failing to make arrests of violators of the law,” Pemberton wrote. “These new policies not only put our members at risk, they also endanger our communities by pulling the few police we have out of patrol.”

Allen responded in a tweet on Thursday evening: “A reminder that #KaronHylton died following a police encounter with 4 officers that almost certainly violated department policy, ostensibly because he wasn’t wearing a helmet,” he wrote. “It is not a stretch to believe if Karon was white, things would’ve been handled different and he would still be here, his daughter would grow up with a father, & there would not be any protests. My focus remains on the immediate investigation & the long-term work we need to do as a community to end violence. I wish the FOP were willing to be part of that work.”

He followed up with an emailed statement sent to DCist Friday, saying that he’s been in contact with Hylton-Brown’s family members multiple times. “They are grieving and in deep pain processing his death,” he wrote. “We have more questions and few answers after yesterday’s partial release of two Metropolitan Police Department officers’ body-worn camera video footage of the injury, and later death, of Karon Hylton. What we do know is that he should be alive today, and that how Mr. Hylton was treated, and why he was killed, cannot be disconnected from his race.”

Allen added that the bodycam footage has been redacted and edited by MPD. Also, the officers whose video was released didn’t turn on their cameras until after Hylton-Brown was struck by another vehicle, which is against MPD policy, he says. (There is video from the two minutes prior to the crash, because MPD body cameras automatically record the two minutes prior to being turned on. However, there is no audio from before the crash.)

“One of the most viscerally disturbing parts in the footage is the familiarity and lack of urgency of the responding officers after Mr. Hylton was struck and lying critically injured on the ground,” Allen said in his statement. “At least one officer knew his first name and called him by it from afar as he lay motionless on the asphalt. The officers walked, not ran, from the cruiser to assess Mr. Hylton’s medical needs. This cannot be divorced from the individual and systemic devaluation of Black lives in the District, particularly those of young Black men, and I find it hard to believe the officers would have acted with a similar lack of empathy with a white resident.”

Hylton-Brown’s family and friends say his death was one incident of many in a pattern of harassment of young Black men in D.C.

“They drive in unmarked D.C. police vehicles. They antagonize [young Black people] to say something to them so they can get out the car. I’ve seen this. I’ve witnessed it,” Maureen Brown, whose sons were friends with Hylton-Brown, told WAMU/DCist in a phone interview Wednesday. She said plainclothes officers known as “jump-outs,” who jump out of unmarked cars to question or search people, targeted Hylton-Brown.

Sutton was also involved in an incident that is at the center of a lawsuit alleging a sexually abusive and unconstitutional search, though he was not a defendant in the suit.

Protests turned hectic Tuesday as protestors punched holes in the window of the Fourth District station, and officers have worn riot gear and deployed pepper spray to disperse the crowds. A D.C. Council emergency police reform bill passed this summer bans the department from using tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades, and riot gear to disperse peaceful protesters. (The police union challenged the reforms with a lawsuit in August, one of several legal actions the officers have taken this year.) Brown told DCist via text that some officers had “helmets, shields, rubber bullets, tear gas,” and “drove their bikes through the crowds,” over the past few nights.

Pemberton’s statement said that city officials’ new policies have prevented officers from wearing protective helmets — yet, witnesses and DCist reporters have seen officers deployed with helmets and riot gear over the last several nights. In a text message to DCist, Pemberton referred to Subtitle P, Section B of the police reform bill, which states: “No officers in riot gear may be deployed in response to a First Amendment assembly unless there is an immediate risk to officers of significant bodily injury.”

Asked whether the helmets officers have worn over the past few nights are different from the riot gear prohibited by the law, Pemberton said, “The problem is they’re not getting permission to wear them until after officers are getting injured.”

The law leaves room for interpretation of what “immediate risk to officers” means, but the policy also specifically prohibits the use of officers in riot gear “as a tactic to disperse a First Amendment assembly.”

The union responded to Allen last Thursday night on Twitter, saying that 12 officers had been hospitalized Wednesday, including some with “career ending injuries” like vision loss, adding that Allen “has yet to show one iota of condolence or concern.”

Black Lives Matter DC responded to the union with a thread of its own Friday, writing, “[Pemberton] is once again relying on pro-cop folks who refuse to read the damn LAW/ policies for themselves. Who is violent? You all bring the guns, tazers, batons, helmets, and riot gear at the protest and mace children in McDonalds.”

Allen’s own statement from Friday ended on a somber note: “Incidents like this show us the limits of policing and the ubiquity of Black residents’ interactions with law enforcement. When residents call for the reinvestment away from policing into social supports, and limiting Black residents’ contacts with law enforcement officers and the criminal justice system, this is why.”