BOSTON (WHDH) - The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and the Boston Police Department are investigating after an attorney released body camera footage of officers striking protesters during protests earlier in the year.
Demonstrators took to the streets on June 1 to protest police killing George Floyd and other Black people, and body camera footage shows an officer shove a woman holding her hands in the air, forcing her to the ground and then walking over her. Another video appears to show an officer bragging about hitting protesters with his cruiser, until he realizes that he’s being recorded.
“It is terrifying the violence that is inflicted on ironically people who are protesting police violence, mostly black and brown young folks,” said Carl Williams, an attorney representing a group of protesters. Williams said he’s reviewed hours of body cam footage and is now releasing some of it publicly, saying officers were targeting protesters.
“If I saw that in a movie, I’d be like that is a mob chasing that person,” Williams said of the footage. “When they’re in blue it feels different. And I think sometimes we use different words.”
Police Commissioner William G. Gross said the department is investigating and that he placed a sergeant on administrative leave. In a statement, Mayor Marty Walsh said “We never want to see police officers using more force than necessary, even when tensions are high.”
In a statement, the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association said “On a night where 30 police officers went to the hospital, hundreds more were treated for trauma and injuries sustained after being pelted with a seemingly endless stream of rocks, bottles, batteries, bricks, bleach, urine and kerosene, we have a defense attorney who, after stitching together several contextually deficient video snippets, wants you to believe the real enemy of the city that night was the men and women of BPD.”
Williams said the footage was not shown out of context and comes from BPD officers’ own cameras, and that the department can release the full footage if they want.
“This body camera footage belongs to the Boston Police department, it doesn’t belong to me,” Williams said. “So they have every single minute and more. So they can release whatever they want to release.”
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