Source: picture alliance / Getty
Police officers must be masters of dissociation if they legitimately don’t understand why people have countless gripes against them. Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, and Helen Keller can all see why the general public would despise the “blue lives.” The “bad apple” narrative is tired, trite, and at this point, wildly offensive. It’s not a rarity to see instances of police brutality, it’s quite literally a daily event that you can witness with very little effort.
A WKYC report about such an incident in Canton, Ohio is yet another example of how a lot of police officers get their rocks off by enacting unwarranted violence on citizens. 21-year-old Taemiier McElroy was one of several people held at gunpoint by a Canton police officer responding to a call about “a large group of people arguing”. Although McElroy fled the scene when police arrived, he and four other men complied when they were told to get on the ground and put their hands in the air. The responding officer asked for backup and that’s when Officer Brandon Momirov sprinted to the scene, made a beeline for McElroy, and kicked him in the chest despite the 21-year-old’s full compliance.
“How many times did I tell you to get on the ground?,” said Momirov in the video.
“You guys don’t want to listen, that’s fine,” another officer said to the men being arrested. “Then don’t be surprised when we put our hands on you.”
The body camera footage below was released to the public and confirms this unequivocal fact.
Warning: The video may be disturbing for some viewers
McElroy’s lawyer Bobby DiCello described Officer Momirov’s actions as “disgusting” saying, “What I just saw was renegade, rogue, gang-style policing.”
“There’s a double standard in law enforcement. That’s what this shows me,” he added. “We have one, two, three, four African American young men who are standing by a car and they call that resisting,” DiCello said. “When law enforcement fails to see us as human beings anything is possible. Anything.”
The incident has caused so much anger in the community that Canton Mayor William Sherer II had to speak out.
…I want to reiterate that the behavior seen in the video is unacceptable. This behavior will not be tolerated. It is unfortunate that we continue to have these occurrences arise that reflect on our entire police department.
When WKYC asked about Momirov’s current employment status, a spokesperson for the department replied, “Officer Momirov is currently working in a restricted capacity. The incident is under review.”
We’ll keep an eye on this story for updates.
