Shocking bodycam footage shows cops laughing & BRAGGING about shooting Black Lives Matter protesters with rubber bullets
SHOCKING bodycam footage shows cops laughing and bragging about shooting Black Lives Matter protesters with rubber bullets.
The May 31 footage was shared Wednesday by Fort Lauderdale police on their official YouTube channel in response to media backlash regarding the incident.
Detective Zachary Baro, the officer in charge of the department’s SWAT team unit during the protest, was the cop whose body cam showed the footage.
The newly released footage, showed Baro using profanity language and saying: “Beat it, little f***er.”
Officers were seen firing the rubber bullets after a protester appeared to throw a tear gas canister at police.
According to the Miami Herald, officer Jamie Chatman and Baro conversed and laughed about the protesters they had shot rubber bullets at.
One officer is heard saying: “Did you see me f**k up those motherf****rs?”
Another officer then said: “I got the one f***er.”
Baro is heard in the footage mistakenly saying his cam was on “standy-by” mode.
He later wrote in his incident report: “In an effort to stop officers and innocent people from being hurt, I targeted these violent subjects with my 40mm less lethal launcher.
“I deployed less lethal rounds targeting lower abdomen and the large muscle groups of the legs in an effort to deter their violent actions.”
At one point in the video, Baro is also heard saying: “F**k, I’m getting rocked and bottled, bro.”
Baro claimed to have witnessed demonstrators throwing “rocks, fireworks, smoke bombs, and water bottles containing an unknown yellowish liquid.”
Chief Rick Maglione spoke out in a press release on Wednesday and said a review is underway by the police department to look into the “nearly 8000 minutes of body worn camera footage.”
He said: “We expect an after-action report to be completed within the next 30 days. The Herald’s story shows only two and half minutes of an 8 minute and 43 second long video.
“The entire video clearly demonstrates our officers were under attack by a group of people who chose to use violence instead of peace to antagonize the situation.
“Although the language is extreme, and offensive to some, our officers were dealing with the chaos of a developing situation.”
The full video was shared in response to a Miami Herald article – where former police officer and retired professor at Florida State University, George Kirkham, slammed the cops’ behaviors caught on footage.
He told the Miami Herald: “This is serious misconduct. This is people with badges acting like thugs. It’s like a cancer. If you let it go, it will spread.”
City Manager Chris Lagerbloom told the Herlad: “While I am a huge supporter of the hard work of our police force, I would not want the actions of a few to taint the public’s perception of the dedication and professionalism of the Department as a whole.
“I can understand the intensity of the moment captured on body camera footage as the officers were clearly under attack.
“The language the officers used, and sentiment expressed is not consistent with what the public expects from our police force.”
Lagerbloom had requested the police chief to “look into the matter.”
According to Fort Lauderdale police policy: “Once the [bodycamera] is activated to record an interaction, it shall remain on until the event has ended.”
During the protest, which had been mostly peaceful, LaToya Ratlieff was shot in the face and suffered a fractured skull.
Following that protest, a Fort Lauderdale cop was hit with charges after he was seen on video pushing a kneeling woman to the ground.
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The May 31 incident took place about a week after George Floyd‘s Minneapolis death – which prompted a nationwide movement to address racial inequality and police brutality.
Floyd, 46, is a black man who died after cop Derek Chauvin was seen in video kneeling on his neck.