A recent cellphone video shows a pair of New York City police officers trying to put a handcuffed man in a squad car before one officer charges at another man apparently interfering in the arrest and a fight breaks out.
The clip then shows the cop allegedly being put in a headlock by the man, and one observer shouts, "F*** him up! F*** him up!" When the battle subsides, the same observer is heard laughing at and taunting the officer, "You just got smoked, p***y!"
Adding to the drama is that the NYPD may soon be barred from using headlocks under a new City Council bill expected to pass, the New York Post reported.
Here's the clip of the fight. Content warning: language:
"Putting a cop in a headlock could mean a death sentence if they lose control of their gun," a law enforcement source told the Post in an earlier story in response to the video. "A cop in a headlock can't maintain weapons control."
What are the details?
Multiple law enforcement sources gave an account of what happened that night, the Post noted:
The two cops — both of them neighborhood coordination officers, tasked with tackling quality-of-life issues — were part of an NYPD initiative to discourage outdoor crowds, in hopes of minimizing the multiple people getting injured during individual shootings.
When the crowd hanging out at the Bronx intersection ignored their instructions to disperse, the cops began writing a summons for a double-parked car at the scene.
The car owner then arrived and began complaining, and insisted, "Well, now that you wrote the summons, I can park here for hours and hours."
Told that's not how it works, the car owner became "combative," sources said.
It was while the two were trying to handcuff the belligerent car owner that the crowd began taunting the officers.
"He act gangsta because he got a badge and a gun," the man filming is heard saying on the video. "F*** outta here. Y'all n****** is p***y, bro."
At some point, one of the cops' body cameras is knocked to the pavement, only to be kicked away by the man whose confrontation with the pair allegedly ended in a headlock.
The cop who fought with the man was cut in the head and needed staples to close it, sources told the paper.
What do we know about suspect who allegedly put cop in headlock?
The suspect who allegedly put the officer in a headlock is a known gang member who's been arrested 11 times for charges including gang assault, criminal possession of a loaded firearm, and robbery, a law enforcement source told the Post.
Wisnel Manzueta, 29, got away after the fight but turned himself in with his lawyer Wednesday, the paper reported, adding that sources said his attorney presented video apparently showing the officer striking first.
Police arrested Manzueta on an assault charge, but prosecutors opted to gather more video evidence to build an airtight case against the suspect before moving forward, the Post said.
"Bronx DA needs to get over that hill with a Bronx grand jury," one law enforcement source added to the paper. "[It's] likely they want to present the strongest evidence possible to show what led up to that arrest."
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