Wednesday, September 19, 2018
By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
A VIRAL video showing a bloodied man in handcuffs crying for help as a police officer knelt on his chest sparked outrage from social media users yesterday.
The clip had been shared more than 2000 times on Facebook and sparked hundreds of comments since it was uploaded yesterday morning.
When contacted, Deputy Commissioner of Police Emerick Seymour, officer in charge of disciplinary matters, said he hadn’t seen the video and requested that The Tribune email it to him.
An alleged eyewitness, who spoke to The Tribune anonymously, said she was still angered by what she said took place on Prince Charles Drive shortly before 8am on Monday.
At one point in the video, the arrested man complained about not being able to breathe.
The officer whose foot pressed against his chest responded: “Say something, say something.”
When the man said “all my hand and thing bleeding real talk,” the officer replied “shut up, shut up.”
At one point the suspect, who appeared to have blood coming out his mouth, directed his plea for help to another officer on scene, screaming: “Bro, I need help man. My hand bleeding, my vein bleeding, they punch my teeth out my (expletive) mouth. I need help bro.”
However, the officer on top of him responded: “Yeah your (expletive) neck gon’ be bleeding soon.”
It’s not known what the man was arrested for. According to the eyewitness, the suspect was resisting arrest––but only after police threw the first punch.
“He wasn’t aggressive at first though he may have said something they didn’t like,” she said. “They were punching him up, kicking him up. Blood came out his nose and mouth and he screamed ‘help me’ and they told him to shut up.
“It was three of them against him one,” she continued. “They were punching and kicking that boy and didn’t care that people were driving on the road watching. A lot of people from what I could tell started taking out their phones to record it.”
One Facebook user said of the incident: “Da man done handcuff…why treat him like dat???”
Another said: “This video is disturbing!!!! Something needs to be done man, it has to stop!!!”
“And ya wonder why ns does turn gun on dem,” another user wrote.
One user, purportedly a woman said: “They done have him handcuffed, why does he have his foot on him? Lord knows this is heartbreaking and I don’t even know him so imagine how his family feels.”
At least three videos went viral earlier this year involving officers in separate incidents.
Police have not provided an update on the status of those investigations to date. Regarding the Prince Charles incident, Mr Seymour said last night: “I’ve directed that an investigation be conducted into this matter to determine what actually happened in this video.”