HARD-FOUGHT BUST
NYPD cop dukes it out with knife suspect
Two brave cops tangled with a hulking man resisting arrest after they spotted him in Harlem with a knife, video shows.
The video shows the plainclothes officers trying to take in Saykou George, 30, who had two outstanding warrants and a record of assault.
One of the plainclothes cops is seen using boxingstyle ring moves to keep George from trying to flee along Fredrick Douglass Boulevard.
Meanwhile, the other officer, a woman much smaller than the suspect, tries to grab his arms and slap cuffs on him.
But George keeps resisting until backup cops arrive and subdue him.
Commissioner Bill Bratton on Thursday hailed the officers, who made the bust on Wednesday.
“You have no right, no right under New York law, to resist arrest, which was going on, based on what I’m seeing in that video,” Bratton said.
“The Internal Affairs group will now be reviewing the video, as we always do. But in my preliminary review of that, I saw nothing inappropriate with the officers’ behavior.”
The eightminute video, captured by a bystander and posted early Thursday, begins with George, clad in a red shirt and shorts, handing his ID to the plainclothes officers on a sidewalk. The two cops had seen him carrying the blade in plain sight, cops said, and approached him.
As the male officer holds the ID, George begins flailing his arms while demanding that the officer hand it back.
“You can’t do that to me. I gotta go take my medicine and stuff,” George shouts as onlookers level verbal abuse at the officers.
George keeps mouthing off and gets into a shoving match with the male officer while attempting to storm away.
The officer is seen at one point assuming a boxingtype stance and then hitting George, who continues to resist arrest.
George raises his own fists and the two engage briefly in fisticuffs, but the armed man never lands a blow on the cop.
At the same time, the female officer radios for backup — then tries to come up from behind and put the cuffs on the massive George, but he fends her off.
After a few minutes, a group of uniformed officers arrive, throws George to the ground and subdues him.
George was hit with charges including assault on a police officer, resisting arrest and criminal possession of a weapon.