German police said on Monday they have opened an investigation after a video surfaced over the weekend showing a police officer pinning a teenager by the neck with his knee
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th August, 2020) German police said on Monday they have opened an investigation after a video surfaced over the weekend showing a police officer pinning a teenager by the neck with his knee.
The video, reminiscent of the police brutality which led to the death of George Floyd in May, caused outrage on German social media.
"The video in question is being intensively analyzed and evaluated with regard to how the police intervened," Duesseldorf police said in a statement, quoted by Euronews.
The statement added that the internal investigation is being handled by police from nearby Duisburg for reasons of neutrality.
According to the police department, the officers were called to a restaurant on Saturday over reports of a brawl. The young man who was pinned down was reportedly not part of the fisticuffs but tried to intervene in the police's actions which in turn forced the police to incapacitate him.
The teen was later taken to a police station and then handed over to his legal guardians, the police said.
The video has been likened to the incident which led to the killing of African-American George Floyd at the hands of white Minneapolis police officers. Video of that incident on May 25 led to a wave of riots across the United States which then spread to many countries. It sparked renewed conversations about police brutality and systemic racism in the US.
Reports of serious confrontations between German police and rowdy youths has been on the rise in recent months, with several incidents of gangs-members intervening by the dozens to stop police from carrying out drug searches or enforce social distancing rules.
