Officers suspended after shoving 75-year-old to the ground, cracking his skull

“Why? Why was that necessary? Where was the threat?” asked Gov. Andrew Cuomo at his daily briefing Friday. The governor said he spoke to Gugino, who had been hospitalized in serious condition. “It’s just fundamentally offensive and frightening. How did we get to this place?“

A hospital official said the man was “alert and oriented,” according to a Friday morning tweet by Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

Poloncarz at a briefing later in the day wished Gugino a “speedy recovery” and said the incident „created a black mark, a stain on the city of Buffalo.“

The video immediately generated outrage, including among elected officials, in the wake of the death of Floyd — a black man who died after a white police officer pressed a knee on his neck for several minutes.

The police commissioner suspended two police officers without pay, said Mayor Byron Brown.

The district attorney’s office “continues to investigate the incident,“ officials said in a news release, but the victim could not talk to investigators Thursday night.

Gugino is a retiree who lives by himself in the area, say friends who describe him as a veteran peace activist driven by his faith and a desire for social justice. He is involved with the Western New York Peace Center and Latin American Solidarity Committee, said Vicki Ross, the center’s executive director.

“I can assure you, Martin is a peaceable person,” Ross said. “There is no way that he was doing anything to accost or hurt. He made a judgment to stay out after the curfew because he feels that our civil liberties are so in danger, which they most certainly are.”

His Twitter timeline includes tweets and retweets supportive of progressive causes and critical of police. One tweet from Wednesday read: “The cops should not have clubs. And should not be in riot gear. The National Guard should arrest the police.”

Ross said Gugino has been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.

“It doesn’t surprise me that Martin was standing there looking at these young cops in the eye,” Mark Colville of the Amistad Catholic Worker said of his longtime friend. “It almost looked like he was reaching out to them, trying to shake their hand or say, `What’s going on? Why are you doing this?’”

Buffalo police initially said in a statement that a person “was injured when he tripped & fell,” WIVB-TV reported, but Capt. Jeff Rinaldo later told the TV station an internal investigation was opened.

“When I saw the video, certainly, it was incredibly distressing and very disappointing. You don’t want to see anything like that,” Brown, the mayor, told WIVB-TV on Friday.

The office of state Attorney General Letitia James tweeted that officials there were aware of the video. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer called for an investigation, according to a statement reported by WIVB-TV.

“The casual cruelty demonstrated by Buffalo police officers tonight is gut-wrenching and unacceptable,” John Curr, the Buffalo chapter director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement, adding that it should be a “wake-up call” for city leaders to address police violence.

Source: politico.com
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