2 Buffalo police officers charged with assault in shoving
Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski pleaded not guilty to second-degree assault. They were released without bail.
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Two Buffalo police officers were charged with assault Saturday, prosecutors said, after a video showed them shoving a 75-year-old protester in recent demonstrations over the death of George Floyd in Minnesota.
Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski, who surrendered Saturday morning, pleaded not guilty to second-degree assault. They were released without bail.
At a news conference Saturday, District Attorney John Flynn said the officers “crossed a line.”
READ MORE: Buffalo cops fired after shoving protester, 75, in graphic viral video
The officers had been suspended without pay Friday after a TV crew captured the confrontation the night before near the end of protests.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS VIDEO HAS GRAPHIC CONTENT:
https://twitter.com/WBFO/status/1268712530358292484
The footage shows a man identified as Martin Gugino approaching a line of helmeted officers holding batons as they clear demonstrators from Niagara Square around the time of an 8 p.m. curfew.
Two officers push Gugino backward, and he hits his head on the pavement. Blood spills as officers walk past. One officer leans down to check on the injured man before another officer urges the colleague to keep walking.
READ MORE: 57 Buffalo police resign from response team in support of suspended officers
The video of the encounter sparked outrage online as demonstrators take to cities across the country to protest Floyd’s death.
“I think there was criminal liability from what I saw on the video,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a briefing Saturday. “I think what the mayor did and the district attorney did was right, and I applaud them for acting as quickly as they did.”
“What we saw was horrendous and disgusting, and I believe, illegal,” he added.
But dozens of Buffalo police officers who were angered over their fellow officers’ suspensions stepped down from the department’s crowd control unit Friday. The resigning officers did not leave their jobs altogether.
