One officer shoved the inebriated man and allegedly tried to kick him. The second had filmed Sunday’s nighttime incident from a patrol car on the roadside, according to Brandenburg police.
The 90-second sequence was then uploaded to social media, and courted public criticism. Officials said later that both officers would face disciplinary and criminal proceedings for possible slander and disparagement. Both had also been suspended
Whether or not the man had also been kicked in the backside was difficult to determine because the video quality was limited in the darkness, police said.
Sunday’s alleged abuse at Bad Belzig, roughly between Berlin and Leipzig, coincides with global scrutiny of police conduct amid outrage over the videoed death of George Floyd, a black man who died on May 25 in police custody.
Read more: Neo-Nazi murder of Alberto Adriano remembered, 20 years on
Anti-racism advocates in Germany list various fatalities, including the neo-Nazi NSU murder series between 2000 and 2007, and the 2005 death in police custody of Oury Jalloh, an asylum seeker from Sierra Leone.
His charred body found tied to a mattress in a police cell that had been engulfed in flames at a police station in Dessau in Saxony-Anhalt state. German WDR public radio last month published a five-part podcast series examining the police and investigators’ handling of the 15-year-old case.
ipj/msh (AP, AFP)
Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/video-of-german-police-harassing-homeless-man-to-be-investigated/a-53789958?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf