Newly released body camera footage shows Fort Lauderdale police shows laughing and celebrating as they shot protesters with rubber bullets during a George Floyd march in May.
According to the Miami Herald, Detective Zachary Baro, SWAT team leader, brags on the video about his body camera being turned off after another officer asks if he is recording before he and other officers laugh about the protesters they had hit with rubber bullets.
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“Did you see me f— up those motherf——?” one says.
“I got the one f—–,” another replies.
The footage was found in hours of video released released after a public records request from the newspaper. The Fort Lauderdale Police Department said it had not had a chance to review the footage.
“This is serious misconduct, “George Kirkham, a former police officer and professor emeritus at Florida State University, told the Miami Herald. “This is people with badges acting like thugs. It’s like a cancer. If you let it go, it will spread.”
The footage shows how protesters were hit with tear gas after throwing water bottles at police after Officer Steven Pohorence pushed a kneeling 19-year-old woman over. Pohorence has been charged with misdemeanor battery.
However, the police have claimed they used rubber bullets and other “less lethal” measures for their own safety.
In his incident report, Detective Baro wrote he fired his rubber bullets after getting hit with “rocks, fireworks, smoke bombs, and water bottles containing an unknown yellowish liquid.”
Another officer who fired rubber bullets, Jamie Chatman, claimed he was hit by a half-stick of dynamite but did not report being injured.
“I understand what it’s like to have that adrenaline. I’ve been in a riot situation,” Kirkham told the Miami Herald. “But that does not excuse that kind of verbiage and behavior. It suggests that the police think they can do whatever they want and get away with it.”
The retired lawman added that the city’s internal affairs unit should investigate the video.
The footage also shows officers struggling to properly wear their gas masks, leading to themselves being exposed to tear gas, and burning their hands after touching fired gas canisters.
