Officers quit unit to protest suspensions
All 57 members of a police tactical unit in Buffalo, N.Y, have resigned from that team to protest the suspension of two colleagues who were filmed shoving a 75- yearold man to the ground, local media reported on Friday.
Two members of the Buffalo Police Department’s Emergency Response Team were suspended on Thursday and are being investigated after a local radio station released video of the incident involving the protester.
Local media quoted Buffalo Police Benevolent Association president John Evans as saying the officers were simply doing their job, and that their colleagues on the response team had resigned from the special unit in protest. The 57 remain police officers.
The footage shows the protester walking up to uniformed officers in Buffalo’s Niagara Square Thursday during an anti- police brutality demonstration over George Floyd’s death. The officers, who had begun enforcing curfew, yell what sounds like “move!” and “push him back!” One officer can be seen pushing the man with an outstretched arm, while another shoves a baton into him. A third officer appears to shove colleagues toward the man.
The man falls to the ground. His head whips backward onto the pavement with a thud, and then he lies motionless.
“He’s bleeding out of his ear!” someone yells, as blood pools beneath the man’s head.
The officers then keep walking, leaving the man on the ground, before two state police officers render aid.
The man, identified as Martin Gugino by the group People United for Sustainable Housing Buffalo, was transported to the hospital where he is in “stable but serious condition,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said. Buffalo police spokesman Capt. Jeff Rinaldo said he believes the man’s injuries include a laceration and “possible concussion,” while Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said it was a “serious head injury.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Friday that he had spoken with the injured man, and was thankful to confirm he was alive. Cuomo said the police chief should fire the officers involved.
“You see that video and it disturbs your basic sense of decency and humanity,” Cuomo told a daily briefing. “Why, why, why was that necessary? Where was the threat?”
Video of the incident provoked widespread condemnation online, as police in cities across the country fall under intensifying scrutiny for using excessive force against peaceful protesters.
A Buffalo police statement initially said that a man was injured when he “tripped and fell” during “a skirmish involving protesters,” in which several people were arrested.
Rinaldo said the claim that the man “tripped” came from officers who were not directly involved and were standing behind the two officers who shoved the man. Rinaldo said that once the video surfaced, the officers were immediately suspended without pay.