A Los Angeles police officer was suspended after footage of him punching a man handcuffed to a stretcher went viral — but people aren’t convinced that’s enough.
Featured Video
Hide
According to the LAPD, they had just arrested two carjacking suspects on Saturday when the video was taken. It’s unclear why one of the suspects was being loaded into the ambulance, but video shows him securely cuffed to the stretcher as multiple cops stand by.
The man does not appear to be struggling or posing any other threat, but he does call a nearby officer a bitch. At that point, a cop surges forward from off-screen and appears to punch the restrained man point-blank.
Advertisement
Hide
“Don’t do that sh*t again to any officer,” the cop tells him.
At least three other officers stand by and do nothing, simply watching events unfold. The people trying to get the man into the ambulance gently try to push the cop away, and another police officer eventually comes from off-screen to pull him away from the restrained man.
Cops all around the United States have been facing long overdue backlash from the communities they are supposed to protect for corruption and use of excessive force, and the LAPD is certainly no exception.
Over the weekend, the LAPD faced accusations of allowing Proud Boys and other violent right-wingers to attack counter-protesters during an anti-vaccine rally downtown. They followed it up by attempting to place the blame on “Antifa” on their social media, drawing further criticisms of no longer even pretending to be unbiased.
And their handling of this violent eruption from one of their own is already bound to face drawn-out scrutiny. The LAPD said in a statement on Sunday that the cop in question has been suspended, with Chief of Police Michael Moore specifically calling the video “deeply disturbing.”
However, he also insisted in the same breath that “we must wait for the investigation to be completed” but that “the Department will act swiftly in any instance of excessive or unnecessary force.”
Seeing as how the incident in question involved an officer surging in from nowhere and hitting a restrained suspect, seemingly because he didn’t like something he said, while others stood idly by, people aren’t really convinced there’s anything to investigate — or that the LAPD will “act swiftly” in doing anything other than trying to sweep this under the rug.
Advertisement
Hide
Remember, they’re the “good apples”
— Choco (@choc_aesthetics) August 16, 2021
yeah, my job, too
The rest of working society is held to way higher standards than the cops.— Helene
(@coloradoCMT) August 17, 2021
*First Published: August 18, 2021, 6:51 am
0 Comments