Huntington, WV — A disturbing video was uploaded to Facebook this week by a West Virginia law firm showing their client get brutally taken down by a Huntington cop. The hard to watch video is the perfect example of excessive force and has caused quite the outrage online.
In the video, a man is being arrested for public intoxication. This man’s only ‘crime’ was being drunk while walking, yet this officer chose to escalate force to near-deadly proportions.
While the man was certainly inebriated, he was posing absolutely no threat to anyone around him as a child could’ve simply knocked him down. However, this officer—apparently short on patience—felt the need to employ a leg sweep and body slam.
Without provocation or reason, the officer all of the sudden kicks the drunk man’s legs out from under him. The man is sent hurling toward the ground head-first. When his head hits the pavement, the sound is painful to hear.
Onlookers are astonished at the officer’s need use of force. “I think he hit his head pretty hard,” says one man. “I think he might be out.”
And out he was.
As the man lay there unconscious, suffering from a potentially fatal blow to the head, the officer mounts him, puts a knee on his back and places him in handcuffs.
“Premeditated use of force. point blank. I get that the job is demanding and dangerous but there’s a line and I feel a lot of these officers look for reasons to cross it when it could be avoided,” wrote a Facebook user.
“I’m gonna say uncalled for…. at times yes, that would have been something to do IF he was resisting and feisty. He was too drunk to stand. I usually side with officers, but this was uncalled for…” another user wrote.
“The man was not resisting. This is why people hate cops that was total bull crap what he just did,” another person noted.
However, not everyone was quick to call out the officer. One person defended the officer’s actions, saying, “I love the comments from people who have never been in the law enforcement field. Arm chair quarter (sic) backs. There was no hitting or kicking or excessive force used. The dude tried rolling out and the officer defused the situation by taking him to the ground to control him. People are so quick to bash LEO anymore. Would it have mattered of (sic) this individual would have been fighting with them and would have been talking. Law enforcement cannot win with people. If they shoot someone they are murders, if they apprehend someone it is excessive force.”
Source: https://studionewsnetwork.com