ERIE, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania police officer seen on video kicking a protester sitting on the street during civil unrest in Erie last month will be suspended without pay for three days and will then be on desk duty until he completes sensitivity training, officials said.
The Erie Times-News reports that Mayor Joe Schember, who did not identify the officer, said Monday that similar training will be required for the entire department. He called the officer a veteran of the force “who has no prior complaints and has never exhibited any kind of behavior that warranted disciplinary action.”
Schember and Erie Police Chief Dan Spizarny both said the investigation had concluded that the officer followed approved procedures and his use of force was technically justified. But the mayor said his actions warranted discipline.
The altercation happened shortly before midnight May 30 during nationwide demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd. Police said several hundred people descended on City Hall at night and began spray painting the building, breaking windows, pulling parking meters out of the ground, vandalizing shops and restaurants and throwing objects at police. Officers used tear gas and tried to disperse the crowd.
In the video, the officer is seen approaching a protester seated in the middle of the street and kicking her over.
“My immediate thought upon viewing the video was disgust,” Spizarny said, adding that the officer approached him the following morning and “expressed his remorse for how this appeared.”
“It is clear the officer lifted his leg and used the bottom of his foot to push on the left arm of the sitting protester,” Spizarny said. “It was not a striking kick.”
Attorney Timothy McNair, who represents the protester, said his client was glad that some action was taken but believed the suspension should have been longer. He denied the allegation that she was trying to prevent officers from reaching more destructive individuals.
“She simply, in an act of civil disobedience, was trying to be a pain in the neck,” McNair said. “She was not trying to protect anybody who was firing shots or breaking windows.”
Ken Kensill, the president of the Erie Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 7, said the union supports the officer “100 percent.”
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CLASH OVER COLUMBUS
In south Philadelphia, city crews began building a wooden box around a statue of Christopher Columbus following clashes between protesters and residents as the mayor announced a process to decide the future of the statue.
Mayor Jim Kenney said Tuesday the structure was being built “in agreement with” people who filed a restraining order to bar removal of the statue, something the mayor said the city hadn’t planned. Similar structures have been created around statues to Confederate figures in the South to protect them from being defaced, he said.
In Philadelphia, a city with a deep Italian heritage, supporters at the statue said they considered him an emblem of their heritage. The mayor said Columbus had been venerated for centuries as an explorer but had a “much more infamous” history, having enslaved indigenous people and imposed punishments such as severing limbs or even murder.
“Surely, the totality of this history must be accounted for when considering whether to maintain a monument to this person,” he said. “… I urge all South Philadelphians attempting to protect the statue to stand down and have your voices heard through the public process.”
Scores of people gathered around the statue of the explorer at Marconi Plaza on Saturday, at least two with guns and others with baseball bats. Several scuffles between supporters of the statue and opponents ensued over the next few days.
Statues of Columbus were earlier removed in nearby Camden, New Jersey, and Wilmington, Delaware. In Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Christopher Columbus was torn down, set on fire and thrown into a lake. On Friday in Columbia, South Carolina, the first U.S. city named for Columbus, a statue of the explorer was removed after it was vandalized several times.
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