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Two Suffolk County police officers who were seen repeatedly kicking a handcuffed suspect on the ground on bodycam footage have been suspended without pay.
Three other officers who were at the scene were placed on modified duty in what County Executive Steve Bellone called a “disturbing” incident at a press conference Tuesday night.
“I watched that video earlier today,” Bellone said. “What I saw was disturbing, unacceptable, and something that cannot be condoned.”
The video, posted by WPIX-TV, shows the cops shove 30-year-old Christopher Cruz to the ground during the Feb. 23 incident, then kick him multiple times while other cops watch.
Police did not release the officers’ names.
“What is equally unacceptable is the number of officers who did not intervene, which is a direct violation of our rules and procedures,” Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart said.
Cruz led police on a high-speed chase after he allegedly stole a Jeep from the driveway of a home in Port Jefferson Station around 11:40 p.m.
During the chase police said Cruz rammed a police vehicle, injuring a cop, and later slammed into a second police car before he crashed into a snowbank in Mount Sinai, where he was arrested.
That’s where one of the officers’ bodycams caught the kicking incident.
Cruz was charged with third-degree grand larceny, second-degree assault, third-degree criminal mischief and resisting arrest.
Suffolk Police Benevolent Association President Noel Gerolamo told Newsday he was “troubled by any rush to judgment when talking about an individual who stole a motor vehicle and used it as a weapon to crash into two police cars.”
With Post wires
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