A Buffalo, New York, police officer who was videotaped calling a bystander an obscene, sexist term has been removed from his post for now.
Buffalo Police Department Commissioner Byron Lockwood suspended Lt. Michael Delong and launched an investigation, Mayor Byron Brown confirmed in a statement Monday.
“There is no place for that type of reprehensible conduct in the Buffalo Police Department and it will not be tolerated,” Brown said.
Ruweyda Salim, who filmed police stopping a man this week at a 7-Eleven, is seen on video confronting Delong about the amount of cops present to detain one man. Delong said the man had two crack pipes and attacked his mother. He told her that the suspect was violent and holding a weight in his hand.
“I wasn’t going to go near him,” Salim said.
“You’re a disrespectful little fucking cunt, that’s what you are,” Delong replied.
“Thank you, you’re gonna be viral,” Salim said.
Salim wrote on social media that the officer also shoved “his whole body up against me, breathing on me … and making sexist remarks. … I kept trying (to) move away from (him) but he kept coming after me. He was overtly intimidating me and trying to provoke me. None of the nine other cops stopped this man from physically harassing me. … Armed police officers should be able to effectively do their job without being threatened by civilians recording them.”
Here’s a longer version of the video:
The Buffalo PD was already under fire for shoving an elderly protester to the ground during a demonstration after the police killing of George Floyd.
The man, Martin Gugino, suffered a fractured skull.
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