A social media video shows a group of Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers on top of a woman on the ground as one of the officers punches her repeatedly with a closed fist.
Police said she was resisting arrest. The officer kneed the woman seven times and punched her 10 times in the thigh “to try to gain compliance,” CMPD said in a statement.
The video was shared on Instagram Monday. The person who posted the video said the officers beat a Bojangles employee at a bus stop at West Arrowwood Road and South Tryon Street.
See eyewitness video of incident, posted on Instagram (warning: explicit content)
The person on the ground appears to be a Black woman. The officer who threw the punches was a white man. The video shows four other officers, who appear to be men, holding the person down.
It’s not confirmed when the video was taken, but it was posted to the social media site, Instagram, Monday afternoon.
The video shows bystanders in the area, yelling at police to stop beating the woman. At the end of the video, the person is seen screaming as police drag her toward a patrol car.
Police said officers found a man and the woman “smoking marijuana in public,” and the woman punched an officer in the face.
The man had a handgun, police said.
“A female was laying on her hands and not allowing officers to arrest her,” CMPD said. “One officer threw multiple strikes to the female subject’s right thigh and ‘stop resisting’ was stated several times.”
“The officer was intentional about where the strikes were made,” police said.
“These are tense situations that have the potential to escalate quickly. Police use of force is never easy to watch,” CMPD said in the statement posted to social media. “Officers are trained to strike large muscle groups in order to gain compliance during an arrest.”
CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings said his department will petition the court to release the body camera video of the arrest.
“When individuals physically assault officers and refuse to comply with police and when they resist arrest, officers must engage physically with them to safely take them into custody,” Jennings said in a statement.
“I watched the body worn camera footage and believe that is tells more of the story than what is circulating on social media,” he said. “The public deserves to view this footage as well.”
Punches like those seen in the video are allowed under CMPD’s policies, according to a copy of the department’s manual posted on the CMPD website.
“Control strikes are used to gain compliance from the person and include strikes to pressure points such as the common peroneal nerve (side of the leg), radial nerve (top of the forearm), or brachial plexus origin (side of neck),” the manual states.
Police said internal affairs is investigating the incidents.