America has yet to correct its unjust policing procedures. Now another man of color was brutalized with a knee to the neck. Incredibly, the incident happened a week before the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The Florida police department has launched an internal investigation after the video surfaced on social media. The video shows a Sarasota police officer kneeling on Patrick Carroll’s neck during an arrest.
The video was taken by a bystander on May 18th. The cellphone video shows three officers attempting to take a male individual into custody. In the video, one of the two officers is seen kneeling on the head and neck of the man.
The man, who was arrested on a domestic violence/battery charge, yells, “Why am I being arrested?” as the officer kneels on him.
“As I’m yelling, and asking, ‘Why am I being detained,’ he started putting his knee on my neck,” Carroll said in an interview with CNN affiliate WFTS.
According to reports, in the police incident report, one of the officers involved attempted to explain. The “defendant attempted to pull away from officers and refused to get into the rear of the patrol vehicle. Minor force was used to escort subject to the ground and secure him long enough for him to calm down.”
Carroll says he was not resisting but was moving around for “circulation in his body and throat.”
Another Day, Another Reason To Protest
The timing of the video underscores a point, police techniques like kneeling on suspects are normal. As protests roil throughout the world, the nation is seeking justice and reform.
An independent autopsy of George Floyd attributed his death to officers kneeling on him during his arrest.
Video showed an officer with a knee on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes.
However, the Sarasota Police Department is feigning ignorance of the incident. In a statement released Tuesday, the Department said they didn’t learn about the video until Monday. That’s when the department was tagged in a social media post showing a portion of the arrest.
Only after a review of several videos, did Chief Bernadette DiPino initiate a formal internal affairs investigation, the department said.
“Chief DiPino was disturbed to see an officer kneeling on the head and neck of an individual in the video. While it appears the officer eventually moves his leg to the individual’s back; this tactic is not taught, used, or advocated by our agency,” a statement released by SPD read.
The officer has not been identified and has been placed on administrative leave. It is not clear whether the other two officers on the scene will face any disciplinary action.
However, SPD released an unedited video taken from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office helicopter on the day of the arrest. The 13-minute video provides a bird’s eye view of officers responding to the scene and taking the man into custody.
