As part of what Grand Rapids, Michigan police are calling “Operation: Safe Neighborhoods,” three police cars pulled over a car with two Black men and one Latino man, claiming they were littering. Police forced the men out of the car, including dragging one of them out the door.
As March 26 body cam video reveals, cops repeatedly beat one of the Black men, identified as Diabate Hood, punching him in the face. They can be heard telling him to “stop resisting,” despite having him on the ground as he was being handcuffed, and may have pepper sprayed him. One officer said he was about to but another officer told him not to. Moments later the victim shouted, “I can’t breathe,” repeatedly, and complained, “My eye, my eye, I can’t open my eyes.”
At one point one of the police officers tells one of the men, “You’re lucky you’re not dead.”
The event is being supported by the Grand Rapids Police Chief.
“This is the police work that I expect from my personnel,” Chief Eric Payne said in a Wednesday statement, WOOD-TV reports. “I have made the enforcement of violent crime and the recovery of illegal firearms one of the department’s top priorities.”
Police say they recovered four guns from the car.
At least one of the victims has retained an attorney who says there will be a lawsuit, as WOOD-TV reports: