****TW: police brutality****
Today at Jeanne Mance @SPVM chased and tackled a man until he passed out and continued to beat him once he woke up. Police brutality and racism are intrinsic parts of modern policing #DefundThePolice @defundthespvm pic.twitter.com/K0wzM3lfZS
— agnes (@agnes_reiss) April 11, 2021
A video published on Twitter, showing ten police officers restraining one man. In the video, one of the officers was punching the man in the head while several other hold him down on the ground. The police officer who punched the man multiple times also appeared to put his arm around the man’s neck.
It is not clear why the man was being restrained or arrested.
One witness reported that the three officers chased and a police officer riding a bike intentionally crashed his bike into the man’s back to stop him. Another witness stated that the officers tackled the man until he passed out and continued to beat him once he woke up.
Anonymous witness told CTV News:
“The young man, who is a person of color, was minding his own business sitting in the park and was stopped by the police,”
“As this interaction winds to an end, he gets up to walk away from the police and is immediately followed by three police officers.”
Nick Reich told CTV News:
“I saw the cop’s running and then I saw the person running away from them. He was standing 20 feet from me, with his friend… This guy ran away and (a police officer) couldn’t catch him so they chased after him on a bicycle and just tackled him,” he said. “I saw them talking to him and then he started running away.”
“They shoved his face into the dirt and they were leaning on him. He was saying ‘Get off me, I can’t breathe.’ There must have been six or seven officers on the guy. It was just very aggressive for what it was. Their level was 10 times higher than what it should have been.”
Reich said one of the officers involved in the chase had been going to groups in the park and acting aggressively.
“He came up to my group and without warning grabbed a beer out of my girlfriend’s hand and spilled it out. He was basically provoking people,” said Reich. “This one guy, I don’t know what his problem was.”
Alain Babineau, a retired RCMP staff sergeant and advocate on issues of racial profiling and polices brutality, specifies that a “carotid restraint” is not necessary when there are more than one police officer present.
“When it’s not properly applied, it can cause the death of a person. It becomes a lethal maneuver.”
A carotid restrain should be kept to a minimum and should be only used in a life and death situation only.
Call Out News will update this story as details emerge.