MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — For the second time this year, bodyguards for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appear to have gotten physical with U.S. protesters — this time, inside the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square, during a "special address" Erdogan was giving to local Turkish and Muslim leaders on Thursday afternoon.

Want more local news? Sign up here to receive free newsletters and alerts from the New York City Patch. Turkey's president has a reputation in his own country for punishing dissenters with prison and intimidation — and force — while slowly expanding his own governmental powers, sultan-style. He was in NYC this week for the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly.

At around the 5-to-15-second mark and 30-second mark in the TV news footage below, men in dark suits can be seen punching two different protesters as they're escorted out of the hotel. Marriott Hotels spokeswoman Kathleen Duffy said the "men in dark suits who were security officers in the ballroom" Thursday afternoon were Erdogan's guys. They were "hired by the client, not the hotel," she wrote in an email.

Duffy said she could not personally confirm, however, that the guards punched anyone. Another video recorded in the ballroom by Turkish journalist and political analyst Ilhan Tanir shows what he reported to be a bodyguard-on-protester attack, beginning around the 25-minute mark:



#Cumhurbaşkanı #Erdoğan New York'ta halka konusuyor People from all ethnicities in #NewYork https://t.co/k1w7mTM2mK

— Turkish Journal (@turkishjournal) September 21, 2017 Here are some more angles of the violence.

It's still not entirely clear, though, if the men in suits who were caught on tape punching protesters Thursday were Erdogan's paid employees or just his supporters. A spokeswoman for the NYPD said police were not looking into whatever occurred inside the Marriott on Thursday afternoon. That investigation would be up to hotel management, she said. However, NYPD officers did respond to a separate skirmish outside the hotel — located on Broadway, near 7th Avenue — right after Erdogan's speech, the spokeswoman said.