
De Blasio and Shea troubled by video of cop using force

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea, left, and Mayor Bill de Blasio, in February. On Monday they expressed concern over video showing a city cop using force during an apparent social distancing enforcement. Credit: Corey Sipkin
Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD commissioner Dermot Shea both said Monday they were troubled by video showing anti-crime cops using force during an apparent social distancing enforcement.
The encounter led to three arrests, the seizure of a non-police Taser and $3,000 in cash, plus a small amount of marijuana, Shea said during a joint media availability with the mayor.
"We can do better than that, frankly," Shea said of the video, in which a plainclothes officer grapples with a man, forcing him down to the ground, smacking him and placing his left knee on the man's neck and head.
De Blasio was equally disturbed.
"The video was very troubling and what I saw was actually unacceptable and the discipline by the NYPD was swift," said de Blasio, referring to an officer, identified by officials as Francisco Garcia, being placed on modified duty pending an Internal Affairs Bureau investigation.
Shea said cops secured a number of videos of the incident and were examining them as part of the investigation. One video taken by a civilian showed the beginnings of a violent encounter between plainclothes cops and a man seated on a milk crate outside a store. Based on the seizure of items by police, it remained unclear Monday if officers were looking beyond social distancing violations and at the possible illegal sale of drugs.
"What was exactly going on there is still under investigation," the police commissioner said.
NYPD officers will continue to be an important part of social distancing enforcement, de Blasio said. Both the mayor and Shea stressed that over the years, cops have gone through a great deal of training in how to de-escalate encounters and avoid violence. However, Shea said civilians have a responsibility to avoid trouble and obey police officers.
"I would also remind you that de-escalation takes two, unfortunately," Shea said. "There are two people involved in every encounter and what we have seen in the past is that when people do not comply with police in the first take down … sometimes those things are not pretty when seen as video."