As parks in upscale areas were packed with sunbathing yuppies, NYPD spent the weekend arresting those who failed to social-distance on the streets. In this video, an unmasked plain-clothes officer is seen brandishing a stun gun sideways like a movie gangster, then attacking a bystander watching an ongoing arrest.
Eyewitness News ABC 7 NY reports that the officer was placed on "modified duty" after the video emerged.
As a couple was being arrested, video shows one of the officers break away from that arrest to walk up to a bystander with his taser drawn -- swearing and telling him to move back.
Video showed the plainclothes officer, who was not wearing a protective face mask, slapping 33-year-old Donni Wright in the face, punching him in the shoulder and dragging him to a sidewalk after leveling him in a crosswalk.
The man attacked by the officer was reportedly Donni Wright, 33. Wright was charged with assault on a police officer, menacing, resisting arrest and other crimes, reports NBC. NYPD would not confirm that Wright is the man attacked by the officer in the video.
UPDATE: The original arrest was caught on CCTV and depicts a similarly violent and unprovoked attack: one of two people not socially-distancing roughed up by the same officer. He approaches from the bottom-right of the screen about 37s in. Both are arrested in shambolic fashion, and the video ends with the officer approaching and attacking the bystander.
