Riot in New York City’s Union Square after influencer’s PlayStation 5 giveaway goes awry

A gathering called by a popular online influencer in New York city’s Union Square drew an unexpectedly large crowd on Friday and degenerated into violence and chaos that left people injured, leading to a massive police turnout, authorities said.

It began with a posting on Instagram from 21-year-old Kai Cenat, calling on fans to meet him in lower Manhattan for a live-streamed event where he would hand out gifts including PlayStation 5 game consoles.

Thousands of young people — at least 2,000 according to US media — gathered very quickly on Union Square and surrounding streets in the hopes of seeing Cenat, who has millions of followers on Twitch, YouTube, Instagram and other social media.

As the crowd swelled, young men started throwing objects from a nearby construction site, targeting people in the crowd and the police, who were rapidly deployed in large numbers.

Television footage and news photographs showed rioters surrounding and blocking vehicles, with young men kicking and smashing some of the cars parked there.

“People were bleeding from their heads, from their faces … people were suffering out here,” New York City Police Chief Jeffrey Maddrey told reporters.

“There were a lot of people, it was uncontrolled… a lot of young people got hurt,” he added.

It took a thousand police officers to disperse the impromptu gathering. Several people were arrested, Maddrey said.

Cenat has been taken in for questioning, but has not been formally detained.