Protests have erupted in Allentown, Pennsylvania after a video showing a police officer restraining an unnamed black man by placing his knee on his neck has gone viral.
Activists are outraged and are demanding accountability after the video surfaced on Monday.
Protests against police brutality have erupted in Pennsylvania, after a video showing a police officer restraining a man with a knee to his neck has gone viral.
Many are comparing the video to the clip that captured the tragic death of George Floyd, and it has been met with demands from local Black Lives Matter groups to suspend the officers involved.
The video depicts an officer restraining the man, who does not seem to be resisting, outside an emergency room of the Sacred Heart Campus of St Luke’s Hospital. The officer has his elbow on the man’s neck before switching to a knee to hold him down while other officers restrained his arms.
Elected officials could commit RIGHT NOW to decrease policing budgets and reinvest those funds into community services.
What are they waiting for?
— ACLU (@ACLU) July 12, 2020
This contravenes police policy, which forbids neck restraints to be used in this way.
Hundreds of people marched in downtown Allentown on Monday night, calling for the officer to be fired and police funds to be reallocated to education, mental health and other social services.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania have also criticised actions taken by police, tweeting in response to a statement by police that the “appalling excuse for an officer illegally placing his knee on a man’s neck is that he was in mental distress and being non-compliant.”
The man in the video has since been treated in hospital and released.
