Video shows US police officer body slamming a man who allegedly spat on him
A police officer in the US city of Chicago has been put on desk duty after video surfaced of the officer picking up a black man and slamming him to the ground during an arrest on Thanksgiving Day.
Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Friday that the officer's gun and badge will be taken away and he will be assigned to desk duty until the Chicago Office of Police Accountability completes its review of the disturbing incident.
"This incident is under investigation as the actions in the video are concerning. If wrongdoing is discovered, officers will be held accountable," Guglielmi said in a statement.
According to police, the incident occurred after officers in an unmarked vehicle approached a 29-year-old man drinking alcohol around 4 pm at a bus station in the Chatham neighborhood on Chicago.
Police said the man became angry at one of the officers, verbally threatened him, licked the officer's face, and spat in his eyes and mouth. The officer then performed what was described by police as an "emergency takedown."
But the brief video starts only at the onset of the takedown and doesn't show what led to it.
The disturbing video shows the officer grab the man by his midsection and forcefully throw him to the ground. The man's head appears to land on the concrete curb. The man does not appear to move for the rest of the video.
"I was nervous. I was scared. I was hoping this young man was okay," Jovonna Jamison, the 22-year-old bystander who recorded the video, told local media outlets.
The detainee "didn't do anything aggressive -- he just stood there," Jamison said.
"He was standing there using his cell phone. They took away his bottle of liquor and threw it," she said.
"I'm not really surprised because it happens so much in Chicago, but I didn't think I would ever see it front and center."
The names of the injured man and the officers involved were not released.
Police said the man was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where his condition was stabilized Thursday night. The officer also went to an area hospital for evaluation.
The episode comes nearly three years after the US Justice Department reported it had found a pattern of unconstitutionally excessive and deadly force within the Chicago police department.
Fatal police shootings and other forms of violence against African Americans have sparked massive protests across the US in recent years.
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