“This is some bullshit man! This is some bullshit!”
A Facebook user named “Jun IceaaPolice” posted a video on facebook that reached nearly two million hits with the caption:
brutality, Me and my men Goodbrotha Saykou just came from the pizza shop walking home got stop by the cops. They didn’t tell him why he got stop in the first place ,they ask for his ID, he gave it to them.. ya watch the rest of it and let me know if the stop or arrest was justify.”
Neither the facebook user or the man in the video answered PINAC’s interview request, and so assessing the situation is limited to the video available – but the video speaks volumes.
As the video below shows, an NYPD officer attempted to handcuff a suspect after detaining him on the street in order to check the man’s identification. What the video does not show, and what the officer never states, is why the man on the street is being detained.
When the officer attempts to handcuff the man during the detainment, the man is confused by the officer’s attempt to handcuff him and police him in a police car, as the officer never stated why the man was being detained, and after the man produced his ID, the officer immediately escalated the detainment into an arrest.
Not understanding why he was being stopped and now arrested, the man attempted to walk away from the officer – so the officer started a street fight, punching the man in the head as he tried to walk away.
From the officer’s perspective, the use of force is justified for a “noncompliant” suspect – but as the man likely contemplates suing the police, the question will become – what crime was the man suspected of committing?
The man recording mentioned that the detained was “over a knife” so this incident may not be one of the countless illegal stop-and-frisks that the NYPD has become famous for – but that doesn’t mean officers had reasonable suspicion of a crime.
As the sheer volume of the nearly two dozen officers that descended on the scene attests, this may be a case of NYPD officers with too much time of their hands investigating a crime that doesn’t exist.
Police officers cost a city money. When a police force has the time to detain people without reasonable suspicion of a crime, that police force probably has too many police officers.
But when a police force has the time to send in around two dozen officers as back up in an officer-instigated street fight, that police force has way too many officers.
