An elderly man was confronted by police during a protest Thursday evening in Buffalo.
Photo: wbfo/ReutersThe Buffalo Police Department suspended without pay two officers seen on camera knocking down a 75-year-old man during a protest, in what was the latest in a string of videos from recent demonstrations that have inflamed the debate over law-enforcement tactics.
The local news footage from Buffalo shows the man approach two officers while apparently saying something. One officer shoves the man, who falls backward and strikes his head on the pavement. Blood pools by his head as police walk by. The incident occurred Thursday evening, beyond the city’s curfew, according to Mayor Byron W. Brown.
On Friday, 57 members of the Buffalo Police Department resigned from the unit assigned to mass gatherings, according to city and union officials. Buffalo Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood confirmed the resignations in a statement; a union official said the officers were protesting the city’s decision to suspend the two officers involved in the pushing incident.
The Buffalo episode was the latest captured by civilian cellphones or news cameras during nationwide demonstrations to protest the death of George Floyd. In Philadelphia, authorities are charging a police officer recorded while striking a man in the head with a baton. Videos have also shown a police car in Los Angeles striking two pedestrians and multiple incidents of people injured by rubber bullets.
For critics sharing videos on social media, they are proof-positive of out-of-control policing.
“You see them pushing this 75-year-old man down and his head busts on the ground, and they don’t even stop and help?” said Todd Rutherford, an African-American lawyer who represented a bystander who filmed a 2015 fatal police shooting in North Charleston, S.C. “It didn’t surprise me at all. We’ve been seeing this all our lives.”
Police defenders, including those highly critical of the Minneapolis policemen now charged in Mr. Floyd’s death, say officers are often responding after being antagonized and attacked. Police are also trying to protect neighborhoods from looting and property damage that has occurred in many cities in situations where they are vastly outnumbered.
“I’ve seen great restraint being used mostly, in 99% of the cases,” said Ed Davis, a former Boston police commissioner. “There have been cases where police have done things that look like an overreaction.”
“Here’s the problem: we’re still recruiting our officers from the human race,” Mr. Davis said.
Police are under intense scrutiny after Mr. Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed on May 25 after officers arrested him for allegedly trying to pass off a counterfeit $20 bill. Video that circulated widely on social media showed a white police officer with his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck as he pleaded for mercy and said he couldn’t breathe.
Police in Manhattan took up position Thursday after the evening curfew took effect.
Photo: John Minchillo/Associated PressThe civilian recording of the Memorial Day incident has already helped prompt police reforms.
The Minneapolis city council said Friday that it would ban police chokeholds and require officers to immediately report and intervene in any unauthorized uses of force by fellow officers.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday also called for law enforcement in his state to stop using and teaching the type of hold used on Mr. Floyd.
Under the Minneapolis agreement, which the state said needs a judge’s approval, the city would also require the Minneapolis police chief to sign off on crowd-control weapons during demonstrations. It would increase transparency on policy disciplinary decisions and allow body-camera footage to be audited by the state’s civil-rights department.
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said he would continue to work on improving public trust and changing his department’s culture. “I will be bringing forth substantive policy changes,” he said.
“We are moving quickly to create substantive change,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said.
Since Mr. Floyd’s death, protesters typically using cellphones have circulated hundreds of videos showing clashes between the police and demonstrators, often showing officers shoving, kicking, or punching protesters.
T. Greg Doucette, a Durham, N.C., lawyer has logged more than 300 videos of such clashes on Twitter since the protests began a week ago.
Mr. Doucette, a white Republican, said he is angry that police culture has resisted change despite the attention videos of aggressive tactics have drawn since the Black Lives Matter movement started in 2014. “When the government violates your rights, that’s supposed to be one of the things we actually care about,” he said.
Critics cite similar actions by police during recent demonstrations, from an officer on horseback knocking over a protester in Houston, to the pepper-spraying of elected officials in Columbus, Ohio, who tried to intervene when a police officer shoved a protester to the ground.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said Friday a police staff inspector is facing aggravated assault and other charges for a video showing him hitting a 21-year-old man on his head with a baton during a tense confrontation with demonstrators on Monday. The man sustained a large head wound that required sutures and stitches, Mr. Krasner said.
Jonathan Feinberg, an attorney for the man who was struck, called the incident “a brazen incident of misconduct” by police. The local Fraternal Order of Police lodge called the allegations baseless while saying it would vigorously defend the officer in question. He had only had milliseconds to make a decision during a volatile and chaotic situation, the lodge said.
Seattle’s police chief said late Friday that the department would suspend the use of tear gas for 30 days, while internal and external watchdog groups reviewed policies on its use.
Maria Haberfeld, an expert on police training at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that in many of these videos, officers are doing what they were taught: asserting their authority first by mere physical presence, then voice commands, and pushing back when someone advances at them.
“In Buffalo, the officers did what they were trained to do,” she said. “It is incorrect to say the man posed no threat because of his age.”
“ “Here’s the problem: we’re still recruiting our officers from the human race.” ”
John Evans, president of the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, which represents officers, called the two officers’ suspensions baffling and said they were executing an order to clear the area. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, a Democrat, said he was “exceptionally disappointed” by news that the officers had resigned from the SWAT-like detail “because it indicates to me that they did not see anything wrong with the actions.”
Mr. Lockwood, the police commissioner, said that while the officers had removed themselves from the detail they hadn’t actually resigned from the police force.
More than 300 officers have been injured in the past week in New York alone, Ms. Haberfeld said. Officers nationwide have seen footage of counterparts in other cities being shot and getting hit with Molotov cocktails or bricks, so naturally they are on high alert for their own safety, she added.
“It absolutely creates a perception that they are at war and when you are at war, not everything goes by the book,” she said.
The Major Cities Chiefs Association, representing the 78 largest police departments in the U.S. and Canada, has tweeted videos of officers taking a knee with protesters. New York’s police commissioner, Dermot Shea, tweeted a video showing his officers coming across caches of bricks hidden by protesters and another of officers being struck with rocks and sticks in the back of the head.
Some police are also wielding video to give greater context to large, fast-moving events.
On Thursday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina had a staff member video a three-hour protest and share it on Facebook Live. The video gives a sense of a largely peaceful evening, with one bicycle cop heard saying, “I could do this every single night like this. No one threw anything. They got their message across…that’s what it’s all about.”
In some instances, including in Buffalo, police departments are investigating or taking swift action in response to videos.
The NYPD has said it is investigating at least seven cases of alleged police misconduct that have surfaced since demonstrations erupted. Mr. Shea said disciplinary action would result and officers would be suspended in some cases.
On Friday night, Mr. Shea said two officers had been suspended without pay and face disciplinary action over alleged misconduct during protests in Brooklyn. Video of the incidents were shared on social media.
One officer is seen in a video on May 30 pulling down a protester’s mask and pepper spraying him, according to Mr. Shea. The other officer is seen on video pushing a woman to the ground in Brooklyn on May 29, Mr. Shea said. The officer’s supervisor on the scene will also be transferred, according to the commissioner.
Mr. Shea called both incidents “disturbing.”
“While the investigations have to play out, based on the severity of what we saw, it is appropriate and necessary to assure the public that there will be transparency during the disciplinary process,” he said.
—Ben Chapman, Jimmy Vielkind and Andrew Tangel contributed to this article.
Write to Jon Kamp at jon.kamp@wsj.com and Valerie Bauerlein at valerie.bauerlein@wsj.com
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