A viral video shows a New York Police Department officer repeatedly punching a man in the face as three other officers pin him to the ground inside a subway station.
The cops were escorting the suspect, 50-year-old Alex Lowery, out of the station for smoking on the platform on Tuesday, the NYPD told the Daily Dot.
Lowery was arrested for criminal weapons possession in 2017 after pressing a knife to a woman’s neck in a subway station.
The NYPD shared an edited video on Twitter that shows officers leading Lowery up the subway stairs. Halfway up, he breaks from the officers and continues running up the stairs.
The officers then head back down the stairs with Lowery in their grasp. In the ensuing struggle, Lowery punched one officer in the face and head-butted another, the NYPD said.
The NYPD video then cuts to citizen footage of the officers pinning Lowery to the ground as he refuses to be cuffed. One officer throws no fewer than eight punches as the others hold Lowery down.
This is the part of the video that has gone viral on social media. Footage of the cop punching Lowery made it to Reddit’s r/PublicFreakout page on Thursday and by Friday had more than 4,300 upvotes and 600 comments, many of which criticize the officers for using excessive force.
“For a second there I was really nervous that 4 on 1 wouldn’t be enough to subdue this criminal mastermind but luckily a fifth officer and a canine showed up just in the nick of time,” the top comment reads.
“We are so over policed in this country that even the smallest arrest turns into a little pig party,” another user wrote.
The NYPD arrested Lowery and charged him with two counts of assault on a police officer, two counts of resisting arrest, two counts of violating local law, and two counts of disorderly conduct.
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