Video of onlookers taunting New York Police Department (NYPD) officers as they tried to place a suspect inside a police cruiser has surfaced online.
The footage, retweeted by Mike Reilly, a Republican and New York assemblyman, shows the four officers struggling to place the man inside the police vehicle while one of them calls for backup on his radio.
The crowd is heard telling the police to call an ambulance for the arrested man.
“Do you see us forcing him? He don’t want to get in. He don’t want to get in,” one of the officers tells an onlooker.
Reilly, who is also a former NYPD lieutenant, shared the video on his Twitter account with a caption that reads, “The reality on the street”:
“In that video, you hear the public who were filming it. They actually said, ‘Call him an ambulance.’ They all realize that isn’t what’s supposed to be done there. He is physically resisting getting put into a police car,” he told the Washington Examiner. “So the arrest has not been fully effective at that time. The person is in custody, but he can’t be transported from there.”
The video comes in the wake of the NYPD’s firing of Daniel Pantaleo on August 19, an officer involved in the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner.
“Police Commissioner James O’Neill announced at a midday news conference that he had fired Pantaleo based on a recent recommendation of a department disciplinary judge,” Breitbart News reported.
On Tuesday, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik told Breitbart News that he is “disappointed” in the department’s decision and predicted that the firing would affect how officers do their jobs.
“You know what cops are going to do, now? They’re not going to effect that arrest. They’re going to wait. They’re going to call for a sergeant. They’re going to call for emergency service,” Kerik said. “They’re going to call for all the backup in the world because they now know they’re not going to be supported, and they’re not going to be indemnified by the mayor of the City of New York.”