A video posted on social media shows an NYPD officer repeatedly punching a man as he's held down on the ground at the South Ferry subway station. The incident happened during an arrest on Tuesday.
The NYPD posted a nearly 3-minute video on social media that Transit Chief Kathleen O'Reilly said should be viewed "before passing judgement." The video—taken from multiple angles with text superimposed—shows the man, identified as Alex Lowery, being escorted by two officers out of the station for allegedly smoking a cigarette on the platform. As they ascend the stairs, Lowery takes off.
Police then catch up to Lowery and a struggle ensues. According to the NYPD's account, the incident escalated after Lowery spat and head-butted one of the officers, though the videos don't show that. One of the videos taken from a surveillance camera shows an officer and Lowery tumbling down the stairs and back to the platform. As the two struggle on the floor, another angle shows the officer dealing several blows to Lowery. The video then cuts to another video taken from a rider that was posted on social media, showing three officers holding down Lowery as the officer continues punching him. Riders can be heard gasping as officers order Lowery to cooperate.
"Give me your hand, m----------r!" says one of the officers in the video.
"I'm handcuffed, man!" Lowery says in another video posted on YouTube. "Get me the f--- up this floor."
Additional officers arrive to the platform, including a police dog, to arrest Lowery. He was eventually charged with two counts of assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and violating a local law. Several officers were injured, with one sustaining cuts to the face and injured knee. Another had an injured elbow.
In a rare move, the NYPD released Lowery's arrest record, which includes an incident where he allegedly held a knife to a 30-year-old woman's throat at the 145th Street station in Harlem in an unprovoked attack in July 2017. He had been charged with criminal possession of a weapon.
The tense confrontation comes as the NYPD dispatched 500 more officers across the subway system following last weekend's horrific incident in which four homeless people were stabbed (two of them fatally) along the A subway line. A suspect, 21-year-old Rigoberto Lopez, was arrested the same day as the stabbings and charged with two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder.
The NYPD did not say whether the officers were part of the new crop of 500 cops brought into the subway system.
The violent arrest appears to run counter to Mayor Bill de Blasio's policy of de-escalation, which he began implementing in 2015. The goal to train 23,000 officers in de-escalation training by 2018 did not happen, with only 18,000 officers trained to defuse tense situations.
The Daily News reports the incident is under review.
While the NYPD-produced video showed the incident from multiple angles, it did not fully capture the incident as it unfolded. Still, it prompted Policeman Benevolent Association president Pat Lynch to issue a statement saying the initial video did not tell the whole story.
"The pro-criminal crowd doesn't want you to know how truly dangerous the subways have become—even for police officers," Lynch said in a statement.
