Purdue University Officer Captured Violently Arresting Black Student In Viral Video Is On Leave, But Only Because He Allegedly Received Death Threats

Before you process the lat­est iter­a­tion of police con­tin­ued bru­tal attacks on Black Americans, let us remem­ber that the FBI warned from as far back as 2006 that white suprema­cists and neo-nazis were infil­trat­ing police depart­ments; it is also kin­da remark­able that the FBI made those warn­ings even though America’s police depart­ments have been cesspools of white suprema­cy and anti-Black ani­mos­i­ty since the police were first cre­at­ed to keep Blacks in their place.
Ask your­selves what has been done by Federal, State & Local author­i­ties to rein in the blood­thirsty thugs that now roam the streets look­ing to see who they mur­der next?
Zero!!!

The white cam­pus police offi­cer in a recent viral video where he appears to be strug­gling with a Black Purdue University stu­dent has been placed on leave as his depart­ment claims he has been receiv­ing death threats since the encounter at the West Lafayette, Indiana, institution.

A minute-long video that was post­ed on social media shows a strug­gle between Adonis Tuggle, 24, and the uniden­ti­fied offi­cer in the snow on the school’s cam­pus on Friday, Feb. 4. Cries of dis­tress can be heard from Tuggle and a woman believed to be Tuggle’s girl­friend, who appar­ent­ly is record­ing the encounter with her cell­phone. The woman screams, “You’re hurt­ing him. You’re hurt­ing him. Can you take your elbow off his f — — neck? Tuggle is also heard in footage say­ing over and over again to the cop, “You’re chok­ing me. You’re chok­ing me.” “Please help. This offi­cer won’t get off his neck,” the girl­friend shouts toward the end of the clip. “He’s tak­ing it too far. While the officer’s name has not been released by the Purdue University Police Department, the Lafayette Journal & Courier news­pa­per iden­ti­fies him as Jon Selke. Tuggle told The Associated Press that the alter­ca­tion start­ed with an argu­ment between him and his girl­friend that esca­lat­ed to the cam­pus cop punch­ing him in the face and using his elbow to hold him down on the ground by the neck. It end­ed with him being locked up for resist­ing arrest. The junior psy­chol­o­gy major stayed in the jail for an hour and was able to bail him­self out.

He told the AP that some­one had called the police on them as they were argu­ing in pub­lic. Tuggle said they were already cool­ing off when Selke arrived. Tuggle said, “I was already a cou­ple of feet away from my girl­friend,” when the encounter with the offi­cer start­ed. The girl­friend also tried to reas­sure the cop that they were OK, but instead of accept­ing their protes­ta­tions that there was no need for an inter­ven­tion, Selke cursed at them, Tuggle claims. “I told him he had no rea­son to be dis­re­spect­ful,” Tuggle said. “He was yelling at her and she was yelling at him. I told my girl­friend to calm down and I heard him scream, ‘OK, bud­dy, you’re going down,’ and he threw me against the car.” After this, the offi­cer wres­tled Tuggle to the ground and told him to “stop resist­ing.” “He had his hand press­ing my face in the snow. He was smoth­er­ing me, almost as if you were try­ing to drown some­body under­wa­ter,” Tuggle said. “Basically, what hap­pened to George Floyd almost hap­pened to me, except I had an elbow, not a knee, and for­tu­nate­ly, I’m still breath­ing instead of being in a cas­ket.” As the girl­friend start­ed to record the vio­lent inter­ac­tion, she tapped the offi­cer. Tuggle alleges that the cop threat­ened to use his taser on her if she did it again. Tuggle also said that when oth­er police offi­cers arrived, one of them held his leg down while anoth­er held his arm down.

The first state­ment from the uni­ver­si­ty spoke direct­ly to Chief John Cox’s deci­sion to put the offi­cer on leave in light of the atten­tion and what he said were death threats sur­round­ing the inci­dent. “Cox ini­ti­at­ed the leave of absence after the offi­cer and depart­ment received death threats. PUPD is inves­ti­gat­ing the threats,” it read. Cox also released his own remarks sep­a­rate­ly. First, he stat­ed that the encounter was pre­cip­i­tat­ed when a caller to police said “it appeared a woman was being held against her will near Horticulture Drive,” as described by the state­ment. “Any time a PUPD offi­cer uses force in con­nec­tion with an arrest, the depart­ment con­ducts an inter­nal review. PUPD com­menced that review, led by Deputy Chief Lesley Wiete imme­di­ate­ly upon receiv­ing the officer’s report on Friday night,” the state­ment read.
That inves­ti­ga­tion will, under PUPD General Orders, include input from all wit­ness­es to the arrest and take into account all avail­able evi­dence, includ­ing video from offi­cers’ body-worn cam­eras and state­ments from the stu­dents involved. No phys­i­cal injuries were suf­fered in the inci­dent.” Tuggle has secured an attor­ney, Andrew M. Stroth, to rep­re­sent his inter­est in the case. Stroth stat­ed, “We are demand­ing a full and trans­par­ent inves­ti­ga­tion into the exces­sive and unjus­ti­fied attack on Adonis by the Purdue University police officer.”

“We are demand­ing the imme­di­ate release of all the video evi­dence,” he stat­ed. “There is body cam­era police video that police have, that has not been shared with the fam­i­ly or shared pub­licly.” He cul­mi­nat­ed his demands by say­ing, “It’s anoth­er young Black man attacked by a police offi­cer. This took place, trag­i­cal­ly, on a col­lege cam­pus. Thank God he’s OK because the offi­cer had his elbow in Adonis’ neck. Adonis couldn’t breathe.” The Purdue Black Student Union orga­nized a town hall meet­ing to plan what their next points of action are. The hope was to come up with a solu­tion to pre­vent instances like this from hap­pen­ing to oth­er stu­dents, accord­ing to local sta­tion WTHR. One stu­dent said During the meet­ing, “Why do Black peo­ple con­stant­ly have to jus­ti­fy their lives?” Another stu­dent chimed in, “How many more videos of police putting their knees and elbow on a Black person’s neck and throat do we need to see before we real­ize that’s not how arrests are made?”
Purdue University President Mitch Daniels released a state­ment on the inci­dent on Thursday, Feb. 10.
“There are no sub­jects Purdue takes more seri­ous­ly than cam­pus safe­ty, stu­dent well-being, and prop­er police con­duct. On Friday evening, Feb. 4, police received a bystander report of a sus­pect­ed assault on a woman, prompt­ing an officer’s urgent response,” the release start­ed. Daniels shared that the insti­tu­tion “imme­di­ate­ly” start­ed inves­ti­gat­ing the alleged exces­sive use of force by the offi­cer by review­ing his actions and assess­ing the footage, inter­view­ing the wit­ness, and look­ing at “all video evi­dence, includ­ing body-worn and in-car cam­era footage.”

“Should there be a find­ing of mis­con­duct by the offi­cer, appro­pri­ate action will be tak­en prompt­ly,” Daniels promised. “In the spir­it of trans­paren­cy, once the Purdue Police and Indiana State Police reviews are com­plete, all find­ings and evi­dence … will be made avail­able.” The pres­i­dent asks the pub­lic to remain patient dur­ing the investigation.(ABS)