Photos by Adi Talwar, Story by Jeanmarie Evelly

[Ed. Note: these photos were briefly posted on Saturday afternoon, but removed so we could provide a fuller picture of what happened.]

Tensions were running high at a campaign event hosted by Sen. Pedro Espada, Jr. – and crashed by a group of vociferous anti-Espada protesters – on the second to last weekend before the Sept. 14 primary.

Espada was handing out free bags of groceries to residents in his district outside of the Mosholu branch of the New York Public Library, at 285 E.205th St., when the police were called to moderate a scuffle between a member of Espada’s staff and a political blogger, Rafael Martinez Alequin.