Video: Seattle officer removes colleague's knee from neck of man detained amid looting
Video shows the officer's knee on the detainee's neck for about 13 seconds before the other officer pulls him away
Stephen Sorace
Seattle Times
SEATTLE — A Seattle police officer was seen on video pulling a fellow cop’s knee off the neck of a man who was being detained among a group of looters Saturday night.
Crosscut journalist Matt McKnight captured the act as looters raided a T-Mobile store during demonstrations for George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis last week as he pleaded for air after a white police officer used a similar method to pin him down.
The video shows looters streaming out of the store as police arrive on bicycles. Some looters are wrestled to the ground and detained as others continue running to escape police.
Cops arrived and started arresting looters. #seattleprotest pic.twitter.com/ThyZoUCuQ8
— Matt M. McKnight (@mattmillsphoto) May 31, 2020
This one didn’t upload properly earlier. Here’s the full scene of SPD striving at Tmobile to start arresting looters. #seattleprotest pic.twitter.com/LXENOZfggn
— Matt M. McKnight (@mattmillsphoto) May 31, 2020
One looter, a white man wearing an orange rain jacket, attempts to run from the police, video shows, but two officers quickly tackle him to the ground. One officer uses an apparent knee-on-neck method of restraint while the other ties the man’s hands.
“Get your f---ing knee off his neck,” one of the bystanders can be heard yelling.
Another shouts: “Get your knee off his neck!”
The officer keeps his knee on the man’s neck for about 13 seconds before the other officer grabs his leg and pulls it off the man’s neck and onto his back, video shows.
