One New York City police officer has been suspended and at least one other is under investigation after a video went viral showing a Staten Island cop punching a Black teenage girl in the head several times.
The video, which was posted to Instagram and Twitter Tuesday evening, shows at least two NYPD officers holding the girl by the hood of her jacket on a sidewalk in Graniteville. The girl, later identified by the New York Post as 14-year-old Kyonna Robinson, stumbles backward into an iron fence with her arms over her head. One of the cops continues to throw punches as teenage onlookers scream and record the incident. One of the teens tries unsuccessfully to pull Robinson away from the cop.
“He’s hitting her?” one onlooker can be heard saying in the 8-second clip. “What the fuck?”
“You can’t do that,” another onlooker says.
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A department spokesperson told VICE News the two officers seen in the video were on assignment at a school dismissal post when a fight “between a group of youths” broke out. A city council member who represents the district where the fight took place confirmed on Twitter that the nearby school was a middle school.
“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,” a department spokesperson told VICE News. “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 was taken into custody, according to the department, and escorted to a local hospital where she was treated and released.
Robinson told the Post that her 12-year-old sister was involved in the fight, and that she jumped into the fray to protect her sibling. Robinson said one of the officers pushed her before she decided to strike, and admitted to hitting him two times in the face. However, she said she was shocked by how the officer retaliated.
“I think his career should be over,” Robinson told the Post. “I don’t think he should be an officer anymore.”
Even New York City’s notoriously pro-cop Mayor Eric Adams said he was “not happy with what he saw,” he said during an unrelated press conference Wednesday, adding that the officer seen throwing the punch was the one who was suspended and that internal affairs will be looking at the body camera footage from the fight.
The office for U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, who represents the district where the incident took place, did not immediately respond to VICE News’ request for comment.
The officer, a 14-year veteran of the department, will not receive pay while suspended.
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