Cell Phone Video Shows a Yakima Police Officer Kicking an Unruly Teen

Yakima police are reviewing an officer’s use of force when breaking up a fight Sunday night at the Central Washington State Fair.

A video posted on Facebook shows an officer kicking a teen boy to the ground after he had been sprayed with pepper spray.

The video shows several youth running from the area while a few remain fighting. Then one of the teens appears disoriented, rubbing his eyes while officers order him to get on the ground.

That’s when an officer is shown thrusting a kick into the boy’s backside, sending him to the pavement.

It’s not clear what may have led up to the officer kicking the boy, said interim Chief Gary Jones.
Such a brief video may not provide an accurate account of the entire incident, he said.

“Anytime you only see a snippet of a video, you’ve got to look at the totality of what was going on — what was going on around the officer” Jones said. “With a very short amount of video, it doesn’t give us all the information.”  (Seattle Times, September 24, 2018)
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As with many short videos posted to the Internet, it is hard to know the totality of the circumstances and what else is going on around the officer.

Perhaps this is an appropriate tactic for gaining control of a teenage subject who has just been pepper-sprayed?  Or... perhaps it is not? What is likely however is that we will see a civil lawsuit brought against the officer and his department as a result of this incident.