A disturbing video shows an unarmed Black man being held against his will and harassed by a police officer in Brooklyn, New York.
On Wednesday night, videos of a man being assaulted by several police officers were posted online over him allegedly smoking weed in a park. “I never thought it would happen to me,” said the young man in one of the videos. At the time, he was stopped by a plainclothes NYPD officer from the 69th Precinct.
The incident started with the officers, who were patrolling the 100% Playground area of Glenwood Road and East 100th Street around at around 7 p.m., according to ABC News. The young man and another man were smoking a lit marijuana cigarette when the officers approached him. “As the officers approached the individuals, they fled the location,” the spokeswoman said. Luckily, a woman was on her way home and saw the “undercover cop” cornering one of the men and began recording. The two men were 18 and 20.
“What crime did I commit? Tell me! What’s the problem? I did not commit a crime,” the man said with his hands raised above him. The officer ignores the man despite him, mentioning that the officer legally had to tell him what crime he was being withheld for. The officer eventually calls for backup. When other officers arrive, they immediately start attacking the man by kicking, tackling, and stomping him while he’s on the ground. “I never been arrested a day in my life,” the man can be heard saying. More and more citizens eventually crowded the incident, yelling in support of the unidentified man.
An NYPD spokesperson said the incident is being investigated. “Upon apprehension, one individual was arrested, and the second individual was issued a summons. This incident is currently under internal review.” New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea says they “have concerns” about the arrest. “I don’t like what I saw obviously — it’s not what we’re trying to do here. I don’t want any officer to stand on someone’s leg if they don’t have to. I want more communication between officers and the people they’re confronting,” said de Blasio at a press conference Thursday.
“When you have two people take off running — I’ve been in that situation myself — and you don’t know what you have. … we will have to take a look at the entirety of it,” said Shea. “The end is what concerns me. I’d love to have a different outcome where we wind up on the ground wrestling with somebody.”
The man, 20, was charged with possession of marijuana, resisting arrest, and obstruction of governmental administration. The NYPD can arrest anyone in possession of marijuana. Still, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, “has called for the issuance of civil summonses as a response to low-level marijuana use and possession, as opposed to criminal summonses that make up the current response to most low-level marijuana offenses.”
This content needs a strong trigger warning for police violence.
This young man was stopped by a plainclothes police officer this evening in Canarsie, Brooklyn, apparently for being in a park shortly after the 9PM closing time. pic.twitter.com/RxYHWKfIho
— Rebecca Kavanagh (@DrRJKavanagh) March 5, 2020
