The Lehigh County District Attorney's Office has launched an investigation following the sharing of widely condemned footage showing an Allentown Police Department officer forcing his knee into a man's neck to restrain him.
As a regional Pennsylvania CBS outlet points out, the department claims its policy includes a ban on neck restraints and chokeholds. Its use-of-force policy, notably, was released to the public following a push from the city council and states the following:
The video in question was taken on Saturday night outside St. Luke's Sacred Heart Hospital. According to the report, the department claims the man had been seen "vomiting and staggering" outside the hospital prior to being confronted by the officers. After being restrained by the officers, the man—whose name had not been made public at the time of this writing—was treated at the hospital. He was later released.
The footage, which was highlighted on Sunday by civil rights advocate and prominent attorney Ben Crump, spawned local protests and is also the subject of an internal investigation handled by the Allentown Police Department.
As Crump and others have noted, the methods used by Allentown police are the exact same methods of brutality at the center of George Floyd's murder earlier this year.
Related Stories
Ford Employees Have Asked the Company to Stop Making Cop Cars
Following several internal meetings, a reported 100 Ford employees banded together to pen a letter to company executives to stop making police vehicles.
Bodycam Transcripts Shed More Light on George Floyd's Final Moments
According to bodycam transcripts obtained by TMZ, former Minneapolis officer Thomas Lane confronted Floyd in a car and immediately demanded he show his hands.
New Court Docs Say Breonna Taylor Was Alive After Shooting but Didn't Receive Aid
Breonna Taylor's family has filed new court documents that allege that she was still alive after the shooting, and left to die in her apartment with no aid.
