Video Shows Florida Police Sergeant Grabbing Fellow Officer By Her Throat

A Florida police sergeant has been relieved of his super­vi­so­ry respon­si­bil­i­ties and is under inves­ti­ga­tion after he was filmed grab­bing an offi­cer by her throat, accord­ing to offi­cials. Sunrise police shared body cam­era video of the Nov. 19 inci­dent with NBC News, but the footage was mut­ed with faces blurred, except for the sergean­t’s. Police offi­cers were arrest­ing a “ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly resis­tive” sus­pect, accused of a vio­lent felony, when the uniden­ti­fied sergeant arrived and became aggres­sive with him, Sunrise Police Chief Anthony W. Rosa said in a statement.The sergeant engaged in a ver­bal alter­ca­tion with the sus­pect sit­ting inside a patrol vehi­cle and “esca­lat­ed” the encounter, accord­ing to the chief. The police body cam­era footage showed the sergeant duck­ing his head inside the patrol vehi­cle to talk to the sus­pect and hold­ing a can of pep­per spray, though he did not deploy it. Rosa called the sergean­t’s behav­ior “inap­pro­pri­ate and unpro­fes­sion­al” and said he “unnec­es­sar­i­ly ele­vat­ed the demeanor of the suspect.”

A con­cerned offi­cer ran toward the sergeant and pulled him by the back of his duty belt, Rosa said. The video footage shows the sergeant turn around while backpedal­ing as he was pulled by the offi­cer. He then momen­tar­i­ly places his hand at the throat of the offi­cer and push­es her back­ward, until her back hits a near­by police vehi­cle, accord­ing to the clip and the state­ment from the chief. The sergeant then walks away. Rosa said the offi­cer who pulled the sergeant was fol­low­ing the depart­men­t’s poli­cies and pro­ce­dures that call for inter­ven­tion when there’s “immi­nent fear of engage­ments esca­lat­ing unnec­es­sar­i­ly.” The police chief said he imme­di­ate­ly relieved the sergeant of his super­vi­so­ry respon­si­bil­i­ties after hear­ing about the inci­dent and ordered an inter­nal affairs inves­ti­ga­tion that is ongo­ing. The sergeant involved has no con­tact or super­vi­sion over sub­or­di­nate per­son­nel, Rosa said. “I am very proud of the offi­cer involved in this inci­dent and believe that the actions tak­en were defin­i­tive and demon­stra­tive of good lead­er­ship dur­ing a tense sit­u­a­tion,” Rosa said.
He not­ed that Sunrise offi­cers are expect­ed to “de-esca­late emo­tion­al­ly charged sit­u­a­tions” and inter­vene if an offi­cer appears to lose con­trol or dis­play inap­pro­pri­ate con­duct in inter­act­ing with the public.