A Jackson, Mississippi, police officer is on administrative leave over a video posted Friday that shows him with his hands around a man’s neck and pinning him against against a car, the Jackson Free Press reported.
What are the details?
Jackson police told the paper the patrolman’s name is Myron Smith.
In the video, the officer holds the man against a car and hollers, “Make me! Make me! I said, make me!” before a woman pleads with the officer to let the man go, saying that “he can’t breathe.”
The woman actually tried to release the officer’s grip, but he hollered at her to “get off of me!”
As the camera moved closer to the altercation, it showed the officer with his hands around the man’s neck and at one point pinning the back of the man’s head to the roof of the car.
The woman repeated her request to the officer to let the man go, saying “he’s shaking, sir, he can’t breathe” — but the officer replied, “Ma’am, you see my hands? I’m not even choking him. Look where my hands are.”
The struggle continued, with the officer shouting, “What did I tell you to do, what did I tell you to do? When I told you to leave, what are you out here doing?”
He added, “But no, you wanna get bad with me, and I’m showin’ you!” and “my hands are not even around your throat.”
What are police saying?
Police told the Free Press that Smith was placed on administrative leave pending an internal affairs investigation.
Police Chief James Davis told the Clarion Ledger the department is piecing together the confrontation and that the man and the officer “were in a struggle, a scuffle.”
No arrests were made, the Ledger said, but Davis indicated a report was written up. The Ledger said it submitted a public records request for the report.
Anything else?
The office of Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba released a statement saying his administration is focused on encouraging a positive relationship between police and residents and that “any actions” that stray from such a goal “have no place in the City of Jackson,” the Free Press said.