Two officers with the Buffalo Police Department have been suspended without pay after video surfaced showing them shoving a 75-year-old protester to the …
Two officers with the Buffalo Police Department have been suspended without pay after video surfaced showing them shoving a 75-year-old protester to the ground Thursday evening, causing him to hit his head on the sidewalk and suffer a serious injury, officials said.
The footage, shot by local NPR affiliate WBFO, shows the man walking up to uniformed officers in Buffalo’s Niagara Square 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 step in to 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.”
Buffalo Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood launched an internal affairs investigation into the officers after seeing the video, Rinaldo said. He declined to identify the officers who were suspended.
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. Poloncarz said the incident “sickened me” while New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said it was “wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful.”
“Police Officers must enforce – NOT ABUSE – the law,” he wrote on Twitter, adding that he fully supported the officers’ suspensions.
