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Police Officer Suspended After Video Shows Him Striking Teenage Girl

Mayor Eric Adams said that he watched the clip of the Staten Island clash and called the police commissioner. The officer was quickly suspended.

A police officer was suspended after a video showed him repeatedly striking a teenage girl on the head with a closed fist during a clash among several officers and at least a dozen young people near a Staten Island middle school on Tuesday.

Mayor Eric Adams, who addressed the incident on Wednesday during an unrelated news conference in Brooklyn, said he first became aware of the altercation on Tuesday night when he watched the eight-second video clip on social media.

“I was not pleased with what I saw,” Mr. Adams said. He said he spoke that night with Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who he said swiftly suspended the officer.

His rebuke appeared to be a departure from his reaction last year after a video emerged showing a detective knocking a woman to the ground during a scuffle as her boyfriend was arrested. Then, Mr. Adams was quick to defend the detective, prompting criticism.

Mr. Adams, a former police captain, often praises the Police Department. During the news conference, he said New Yorkers trust the police, and events like the one on Tuesday “are not going to erode the relationship that the people of this city have with the men and women of the New York City Police Department.”

The incident on Tuesday afternoon occurred when two officers assigned to safeguard a school dismissal saw a large fight break out among a group of girls, according to a statement from Julian Phillips, the police deputy commissioner for public information.

The officers intervened. But as one of them tried to arrest one of the girls, a 14-year-old girl who was part of the melee reached for the officer’s handcuffs and struck him in the head, Mr. Phillips said.

What comes next appears to be captured on the video: As the group moves along the sidewalk, the officer appears to lean in and push the girl backward as a second officer tries to grab her. Her head is down and arms are raised to fend them off.

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The video of the altercation spread fast across social media, reaching Mayor Eric Adams.

The officer then appears to take his right fist and strike the girl on the head as other children crowd around, raising their mobile phones to capture the incident. Two young people appear to try to pull the girl back as the officer continues to strike.

“He’s hitting her?” one person says on the video. Another person screams, “You can’t do that!”

The officer appears to strike the girl at least six times with a closed fist before the clip ends.

The teenager was taken into police custody and brought to a hospital where she was treated and then released, Mr. Phillips said.

The officer, a 14-year Police Department veteran assigned to the 121st Precinct on Staten Island, was suspended without pay pending an internal investigation, he added. The officer’s name has not been released.

Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, the city police officers’ union, called for a thorough investigation.

“The police officers involved are entitled to due process, not summary judgment based on a few seconds of video,” Mr. Lynch said.

Nathaniel Styer, a spokesman for the city’s Education Department, said on Wednesday that the agency could not disclose personal information about students and declined to comment on whether the young people in the video attended I.S. 51 Edwin Markham, which is nearby.

Kamillah Hanks, a City Council member who represents the district where the altercation took place, wrote on Twitter that the clash occurred shortly after school was dismissed. She said she asked the Police Department to investigate.

“I am encouraged by the NYPD’s swift and appropriate response to this matter,” she wrote. “Let me be clear — violence against our children is unacceptable will not be tolerated.”

Chelsia Rose Marcius covers breaking news and criminal justice for the Metro desk, with a focus on the New York City Police Department. More about Chelsia Rose Marcius

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: Police Officer Is Suspended Over Punch In Video Clip. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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