The police in Charlotte, N.C., have began an inner investigation after a video was shared on social media exhibiting an officer repeatedly punching a girl whereas different officers restrained her on the bottom.
In the video, taken on Monday, a number of officers are seen restraining a susceptible lady. One of them strikes her repeatedly with downward blows. After a second, the lady is seen being taken to a police automobile.
Bystanders might be heard objecting to the officers’ actions. Anything mentioned by the police or the lady can’t be heard.
The police mentioned in a press release on Tuesday {that a} man and a girl had been smoking marijuana in public and have been approached by officers. The lady punched an officer within the face, the police mentioned. The police additionally mentioned the person had a 9-millimeter handgun.
During the moments captured on video, the lady was “laying on her hands and not allowing officers to arrest her,” the police assertion mentioned.
“After several repeated verbal commands, an officer struck the female subject seven times with knee strikes and 10 closed fist strikes,” to the thigh “to try to gain compliance,” the assertion mentioned.
The names of the person and lady weren’t launched. A lawyer for them couldn’t be discovered.
The violent arrest drew an objection from the Charlotte Mecklenburg NAACP. The lady within the Charlotte video is Black, and a lot of the officers seem like white.
“There are marks on her face, and I want to know how those marks got there, who struck her and how many times was she struck,” the group’s president, Corine Mack, informed WCNC Charlotte.
She likened it to the homicide of George Floyd, the Black man who was killed by the police throughout his arrest in Minneapolis in 2020, a case that spurred widespread protests in opposition to police brutality.
The chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, Johnny Jennings, put out a detailed assertion on social media.
“I had an opportunity to view the video, and it is not easy to watch,” Chief Jennings mentioned.
“When individuals physically assault officers and refuse to comply with police, and when they resist arrest,” he mentioned, “officers must physically engage with them to safely take them into custody.”
He added: “I watched the body-worn camera footage and believe that it tells more of the story than what is circulating on social media.” He mentioned that he couldn’t launch that footage and not using a courtroom order however that he had requested for one.
Both the person and lady have been workers at a close-by Bojangles restaurant, the corporate mentioned in a press release despatched to news organizations.
Source: www.nytimes.com