Baltimore Police Officer Suspended After Video Shows Him Punching A Man

According to King 5 News (August 11, 2018) a Baltimore police officer has been suspended after a viral video showed him repeatedly punching and tackling to the ground a man who did not return the blows, authorities say.

The incident occurred Saturday, Baltimore Police Detective Jeremy Silbert confirmed to USA TODAY. It was not immediately clear what prompted an initial police response to the scene.

The video, shared online by journalists, activists and community members, shows a Baltimore police officer speaking to a man on a sidewalk. Another office is standing in front of the two men, talking to others on the sidewalk.

The man, responding to the officer, shouts, "For what?" The officer standing in front of them blocks the view of the camera, but the man then shouts, "Don't touch me," before the officer begins punching.

The officer hits the man with an onslaught of blows as he wrestles him onto the top of a house's front steps. He punches the man's head multiple times as he lays on the steps, eventually holding him down to the ground.

The man, who doesn't return a punch to the officer in the video, appears to bleed from his mouth as the officer holds a forearm to his face while grabbing his arm.

Throughout the video, the second officer does not stop the officer throwing the punches.
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It is too often the case that we only see video of conflict between police and suspects after the event has become physical. In the case of the Baltimore video we see the event from prior to the escalation of force (when the officer and suspect are having a conversation) until the suspect is on the ground following the escalation of force.

This is a incident in Baltimore, being reported on a Seattle news site. There may be (likely is) more to this incident than what got posted on-line, but what is posted is what people across the nation see, and what they see is, at least in part, what forms their opinion of the police.

According to a 2017 Gallup Poll 70% of Blacks in America lack confidence in the police. Only 44% of all Americans age 18-34 have confidence in the police. We need to change that perception from one of mistrust, to one of respect for the law and respect for the police.