An investigation has been launched into the Cambridge, Massachusetts police department after a video of two officers tackling and punching a black Harvard student surfaced online over the weekend.
According to the Washington Post, the student, who has been identified as 21-year-old Selorm Ohene, was the subject of at least seven emergency calls made by people who saw him acting aggressively and irrationally in public Friday evening. Police found him nude and on hallucinogenic drugs in the middle of a main street in Cambridge at around 10 p.m. when they made an attempt to arrest him.
Video released by Cambridge police on Sunday show an officer striking a black Harvard student while he was pinned down on Friday night. The 21-year-old was naked and a woman who appeared to be his acquaintance told officers he may have been on drugs. https://t.co/9GbSXFwoyI pic.twitter.com/Ze3A9b3Gz8
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) April 16, 2018
Police allege that Ohene approached them with “clenched fists” as three officers surrounded him, and video footage taken by bystanders shows one officer tackling Ohene to the ground and punching him as he screams, “Help me Jesus.” According to the police report, Ohene was punched five times in his stomach, and multiple witnesses as well as a photo taken by NBC News confirm that a pool of blood was left in the street after he was placed in an ambulance.
The Harvard Mathematics student, who is reportedly still recovering from his injuries in the hospital, was charged with indecent exposure, assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and assault and battery on ambulance personnel. As of Tuesday evening, the officers who arrested him have not been removed from duty.
Harvard president Drew Faust called the incident “upsetting” in a letter to the campus community on Monday. “A Harvard student was in obvious distress, and we need to understand how that came to be and whether we could have interceded earlier and more effectively,” he said. “We have been witness to the use of force against a member of our community, which, regardless of circumstances, is upsetting and compels the search for a deeper understanding.”
As The Harvard Crimson reports, the incident has further mobilized Harvard students leading the conversation on campus about police brutality against people of color. Multiple meetings were held in response over the weekend by Harvard’s Black Law Students Association, college officials and faculty to discuss what the campus and community could have done to prevent the incident from happening.
“Black students on this campus are organizing,” Anselm Kizza-Besigye, a Harvard student helping to organize response to the incident, told the Harvard Crimson. “I don’t know specifically what next steps are because we need to think about respecting the victim of this action, but we’re absolutely not going to let this happen idly and we’re going to keep organizing such that Harvard has to hold itself accountable for systematic failures.”