An NYPD officer is shown repeatedly punching a man in the head as three other cops hold the suspect down in a video posted on the internet Thursday.
Cops began struggling with the man as they tried to escorted him from the South Ferry subway station in Manhattan’s Financial District after he was caught smoking a cigarette, police said.
The suspect, Alex Lowery, 50 — whose record includes a 2017 arrest for weapons possession for putting a knife to a woman’s neck at a Harlem subway station — was smoking at the station around 6 p.m. Tuesday when officers approached him and said he would be ejected, police said.
“As they were escorting him out, the male began to walk up a flight of stairs toward the exit. The male then turned and spit in the face of an officer,” police said in a statement.
“The officers then attempted to take custody of the suspect,” the statement said. “A struggle ensued on the stairs and the suspect punched an officer in the face and head-butted an officer. The officers and the suspect then tumbled down the stairs where the suspect punched an officer in the face.”
At one point, police said, Lowery ended up on top of an officer. Video released by police on Instagram on Thursday shows police trying to escort Lowery from the station, and shows some of the struggle between cops and the suspect on station stairs.
The police Instagram video at one point also shows an officer on the station floor hitting someone over him.
The video posted earlier on YouTube appears to show the aftermath of what happened on the stairs.
Four officers can be seen holding down a disheveled, balding man in a tan overcoat and striped pants while one of them unleashes a flurry of eight punches to his head, followed by two more.
“Give me your hand!” one officer bellowed as the man reached for the leg of the officer hitting him.
After delivering the barrage of punches, the officer on top of him repeats, ”Give me your hand!”
One officer says, “Roll over and give us your hand now,” and they force the man onto his side. They hold him down for almost a minute as they cuff him from behind.
“Give me your hand, motherf-----! Don’t reach for me!” an officer yelled.
After Lowery was handcuffed, the officers eased off him. Two officers with police dogs watched from several feet away.
“Don’t get up,” one of the officers told Lowery. He responded: “I’m handcuffed, man. Get me the f--- off this floor.” The cops then get him to his feet and lead him to a door leading into the subway station.