New Jersey Transit Police has launched an internal investigation over a video of an officer dragging and beating a semiconscious man.
The incident was recorded by a woman who spoke to WPVI-TV on the condition of anonymity. She said she started recording when she heard commotion around 10:30pm on Saturday while waiting to be picked up from the Trenton Transit Center.
In the video, the unidentified transit officer can be seen dragging a man who appears to be semi-conscious, then throwing him on the ground. The man seems unable to respond to the officer’s words or instructions, as the officer yells, “Get up and get out now!”
The officer leaves the man on the ground for a few seconds before commanding repeatedly that he get up again while dragging him further across the concrete. The officer then tosses the man to the ground and hits him, yelling at him repeatedly to “Get the fuck up.”
The woman who recorded the officer said that the man had been quietly sitting against a wall when she exited the station. Her phone ran out of power while she was recording the video, but she said the officer continued yelling at and hitting the man and dragging his face across the ground for another five minutes.
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“There was no resisting. He wasn’t even speaking,” said the woman to WPVI-TV. She described herself as an avid police supporter and said she hoped the video would result in better training for the officers. “I don’t know if anything occurred. I’m not speculating that anything did. I can only attest to what I saw. And what I saw wasn’t warranted.”
In a statement, theNew Jersey Transit Police said the officer in the video has been placed on administrative leave pending the results of an internal investigation.
H/T WPVI-TV
