Two Buffalo police officers have been suspended without pay for assaulting a 75-year-old man who attempted to talk to them during a protest over the murder of George Floyd.
The police department later claimed the man was injured after he “tripped and fell,” despite video of the incident clearly showing the officers pushing him down.
The man struck his head on the sidewalk, and lay bleeding and apparently unconscious as the officers advanced past. National Guard members ultimately attended to the man, who’s now in serious but stable condition.
The New York Times reports: The video taken by WBFO, a local radio station, shows the man approaching a group of officers during a protest stemming from the death of George Floyd. After he stops in front of them to talk, an officer yells, “push him back” three times; one officer pushes his arm into the man’s chest, while another extends his baton toward him with both hands. The man is seen flailing backward, landing just out of range of the camera, with blood immediately leaking from his right ear. The video shows an officer leaning down to examine him, but another officer then pulls the first officer away. Several other officers are seen walking by the man, motionless on the ground, without checking on him. The video, which rapidly spread across social media, added to a growing body of videos from across the nation that showed officers responding to protests against police violence with more police violence. Fury among online supporters of the protests was heightened by the police department’s initial claim that the man “tripped and fell,” a description at direct odds with the video.
