Close up of the NYPD logo on a police car.Tim Drivas Photography/Getty Images
An officer was suspended after videos appeared to show him punching a 14-year-old girl, the NYPD confirmed.
The girl had intervened in a fight to protect her younger sister, she told CBS News.
“I was disappointed in the NYPD. I’m a whole child. Why are you putting your hands on me?” she said.
A New York Police Department officer was captured on video on Tuesday appearing to repeatedly hit a 14-year-old girl in Staten Island.
The officer, who has been with the department for 14 years, has been suspended and is under investigation for use of force by the Internal Affairs Bureau, an NYPD spokesperson told Insider in an email.
The department, in its statement, claims that two officers “observed a large fight involving multiple female juveniles” at 2:40 pm local time on Tuesday after school was let out. The officers were “assigned to a school dismissal post” near Willowbrook Road and Forest Avenue in Staten Island where the fight took place, per the emailed statement.
“While attempting to take one of [the] individuals into custody, a 14-year-old female obstructed the arrest by reaching for an officer’s handcuffs and striking the officer in the head,” the NYPD said in a statement to Insider. “The officer, assigned to the 121st Precinct, utilized physical force against this female by striking her with his hand several times. The 14-year-old female was taken into custody and removed to a local hospital where she was treated and released.”
Eight seconds worth of video footage from the incident captured the officer appearing to punch the girl surrounded by a group of children.
One person was heard saying, “He’s hitting her? He’s hitting her?”
In an exclusive interview with CBS News, the 14-year-old girl, Kyonna Robinson, in the video said she jumped in when a girl started to fight her younger 12-year-old sister.
“The girl is bigger than my sister, fighting my sister, of course, I’m gonna jump in. I didn’t even know what was going on. I just ran over there,” Kyonna told CBS News.
Insider was unable to obtain the full video of the incident. However, CBS News obtained a longer video of the incident taken by somebody nearby. The outlet said the footage appears to show a police officer putting who Kyonna identified as her sister in handcuffs when she approached and bumped the officer.
“He pushed me and then I punched him in the face twice and we just started fighting,” Kyonna said of the conflict with the officer.
“I don’t care who you are. You touch me, I’m gonna fight back,” Kyonna told CBS News.
Kyonna said she was treated for a headache and bumped her head at the hospital. Per CBS News, she’s being charged as a juvenile for resisting arrest and assaulting an officer.
“I was disappointed in the NYPD,” Kyonna told CBS News. “I’m a whole child. Why are you putting your hands on me? You’re supposed to be breaking up the fight.”
Read the original article on Insider
