Two police officers in Buffalo, New York, have been suspended without pay after a video showed them pushing a 75-year-old man to the ground, as protests over the police killing of George Floyd continued into their 10th night.
Footage taken by a reporter from a local public radio station and posted online showed the unidentified man approaching a line of officers in riot gear. One officer pushes him with a baton and a second one with his hand. The advancing police line halts when a loud crack is heard as his head hits the pavement, and blood could be seen trickling from the man’s head.
Buffalo’s mayor, Byron Brown, said the man was in a stable but serious condition, with local media reporting he suffered a “laceration and a possible concussion”.
“I was deeply disturbed by the video,” Brown said in a statement. “After days of peaceful protests and several meetings between myself, police leadership and members of the community, tonight’s event is disheartening.”
The New York state governor, Andrew Cuomo, said the incident was “wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful”, adding: “Police officers must enforce – not abuse – the law.”
The video in Buffalo shows the majority of the officers march past after the man falls, though the officer who pushed him with a baton starts to lean over him before he is motioned away by another officer. Someone is heard calling for a medic.
The WBFO radio station reported that two medics had come forward and helped the man into an ambulance. Police later said a man had been injured after tripping and falling, in the city’s Niagara Square, the radio station said.
But, after viewing the video, the Buffalo police commissioner, Byron Lockwood, ordered an investigation and suspended the two officers, Brown said. WBFO said that within two hours of the video being posted on Twitter, it had been viewed 11.5m times.
John Curr, director of the Buffalo chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, accused the police officers involved of “casual cruelty”. “[It’s] gut-wrenching and unacceptable. Suspensions and an investigation are already in order, but there is little more we have to see to know what took place.
“Police officers cannot continue to hide behind the lie that they are protecting and serving. City leaders need to take this as a wake up call and seriously address the police violence during this week’s protest and the culture of impunity which led to this incident.”
The 75-year-old victim was in stable but serious condition at Erie County medical center hospital in Buffalo, Brown said.
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