Royal Oak, MI — Royal Oak police were caught on video on St. Patrick’s Day outside of BlackFinn Ameripub in Michigan last week in a clear and cut case of excessive force.
The video was uploaded to Facebook over the weekend and has sparked controversy and a response from the Royal Oak police department. The man who took the video described the chaotic scene saying, “Looks like each cop wanted to rip a limb off of him!”
According to police, the 25-year-old man was allegedly involved in an altercation inside the pub.
“This individual was observed fighting with other patrons in the bar,” Lt. Dave Clemens said.
Even if this man had been involved in an altercation inside the pub, when the video starts, he is standing there with his hands behind his back and not posing a threat or even resisting in any way. However, that does not keep him safe from the multiple cops who seemingly wanted to tear him in half.
As the man is standing there with his arms behind his back, multiple cops jump on him, one grabbing him by the neck and they begin pulling him in different directions. The officers were so brutally careless that they threw the man on top of one of their own and at that point in the video, we hear an officer yell, “Taser.”
They then taser the man for simply attempting to avoid having his face smashed into the pavement. However, even after they had him face down and cuffed, officers still felt it necessary to kneel on the man’s face, driving it into the sidewalk.
Instead of decrying the overt excessive force by his officers, Clemens commended them.
“It was a very chaotic situation,” Clemens said. “They did the best they could under those conditions to take this person into custody.”
The 25-year-old man was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
“At this point, preliminarily, there doesn’t appear to be any misconduct by officers,” Clemmons said.
Below is the video. Let us know in the comments what you think. Were these officers doing “the best they could”?