Video Shows Cop Chokeslamming a 14-Year-old Student
[There was a video here]
A police officer in Round Rock, Texas grabbed a 14-year-old student by the throat and threw him to the ground on Thursday, as shown in a video that surfaced some time later that night.
The Round Rock Police Department alleges that the cop’s use of force followed “repeated attempts to calm the non-compliant student,” after the teen, Gyasi Hughes, had a disagreement with a fellow student. In the above video, Gyasi is seen speaking relatively calmly with the cops before attempting to walk away—it’s then that the cop reaches for Gyasi’s throat.
Apparently, the original fight began over football goggles: Gyasi asked a friend to return his, but the friend claimed to have already done so. When Gyasi went to check the other student’s backpack, they began to shove one another.
From Round Rock local news station KXAN:
[Gyasi] said an assistant principal broke up the fight, and took him aside. He said that’s when a teacher called the SRO to come over. The teen said the officer told him to walk away.
“As I was walking away the officer was pushing me in the back and I was like, ‘why are you pushing me? I’m not doing anything, I’m walking away like you told me to,” said Gyasi. “Finally we get like in this little corner and he’s (the SRO) sitting there yelling at me saying, ‘You shouldn’t be rude to the lady (assistant principal), don’t talk to her like that,’ I was like, ‘what are you talking about, I’m not doing anything.”
“Finally I asked him (the officer) to leave me alone and that’s the point when he grabbed me and took me down and tried to detain me,” said Gyasi. “I was just very upset, I was amped up over the fight and wasn’t really thinking.”
Gyasi’s father, who filed an excessive use of force complaint with the police department on Friday, told KXAN:
The police officer that was actually in this particular situation, he should have been trained well enough to know that this is a 130 pound child and that the action that was taken was totally unnecessary....
He was not being violent towards the officer, he wasn’t hitting him, he didn’t have a weapon, he was just emotional, which is mostly understood after being in a conflict just as he was.
According to a release by the Round Rock Police Department, the incident is currently under review.
