Buffalo Police Suspended After Shoving 75-Year-Old Man to The Ground Causing Head Injuries
Video of a demonstration on Thursday shows officers walking towards Martin Gugino, 75, and forcibly pushing him and he hit his head on the ground. His head begun to bleed onto the sidewalk as more officers walked passed him not even having the compassion to help him as some of them just look down on him.
Due to that incident, an investigation has gone underway in Buffalo, New York in which Governor Andrew Cuomo called it “wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful.”
Cuomo said the officers should be fired and prosecutors should move “fair but quickly.”
“When I saw the video, I got sick to my stomach,” Cuomo said. “I would encourage the district attorney not to do what happened in Minneapolis, which the delay itself cause issues,” said the governor also adding, “People don’t want vaguery. They are upset and want answers.”
“Thankfully he is alive,” Cuomo said Friday at his daily news conference in Albany. “You see that video, and it disturbs your basic sense of decency and humanity.”
Following the situation, the entire Emergency Response Team resigned according to the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association. Buffalo News 4 reporter Dave Greber tweeted the officers resigned to “show support for the officers who are suspended without pay after shoving Martin Gugino, 75. They are still employed, but no longer on ERT.”
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown issued a statement on Twitter and said he was “deeply disturbed” by it and called it “disheartening.”