Editor's Note: the story has been updated to include responses from Ohio University student organizations.
A video showing three Athens Police Department officers pinning down a man Saturday elicited outrage from users on Twitter.
The video was tweeted by Jiy Brooks with the caption, “At Ohio University, three police officers ran up on a group of boys beside a car on court street, and took down an African American boy. Slammed him, punched him, and holding all parts of his body down when he wasn’t fighting back and was unarmed!”
The tweet also includes a video of the incident, which shows the officers pinning a man face-first on the Court Street bricks. Other people can be heard yelling at police from the sidewalk as the victim was pinned.
“He better stay alive,” Brooks, a sophomore studying undecided business, said in the video.
Brooks said she was walking down the street around 1 a.m. when she saw the victim near a car with a group of friends. She then saw cops coming up to the car and heard the victim say, “What did I do?” while putting his hands up.
“Everything started,” Brooks said. “That’s when I went over and started to record because they slammed him on the ground, hit his face and everything.”
The video only lasts about 30 seconds, but Brooks said the entire altercation lasted about five to seven minutes. A crowd amassed on the sidewalk, and Brooks said her friends and others were shouting at the officers to let the man go.
“Me, personally, I'm not at J Bar,” Brooks said. “I don't know what happened ... I don't believe it should have caused this much for a young student who happened to be the wrong guy.”
APD Lt. Adam Claar said the use of force in arrest cases varies but is used when necessary.
“So if somebody has done something that they're being arrested for, depends on them whether force is used or no force is used,” Claar said. “(It) depends on what type of response that gets. It's really dependent on the situation.”
Brooks said people on campus need to use their voices to speak out against injustices and police brutality.
Several OU student organizations, including Black Student Union, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Black Student Communication Caucus, responded to the tweet saying the force used against the man was unnecessary.
Nolan Simmons contributed to the report.
