Newly released police body cam video shows the moment an officer shoved an elderly BLM protester to the ground in Buffalo, New York last year, which resulted in the 75-year-old falling and cracking his skull on the ground.
The footage, obtained by the Buffalo News on Monday via a Freedom of Information request, shows the incident involving Martin Gugino during the protest in the upstate New York city last June.
It shows, for the first time, the view from the officer’s perspective after video from by a local reporter was widely shared at the time showing Gugino’s head hitting the ground with a sickening thud after being shoved.
The newly released footage shows Gugino approaching one of the officers, who could be seen carrying a baton, and saying: ‘You’re using those sticks’.
The newly released body cam footage shows the incident involving Martin Gugino, 75, during a BLM protest in Buffalo. New York last June
Seconds later, one officer used his baton and another used his hand to push Gugino back.
The elderly man could be seen falling and smacking his head on the ground.
He spent four weeks in hospital recovering from his critical head injury.
The release of the footage comes just two weeks after a grand jury declined to indict the two officers, Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe, who shoved Gugino.
They had been arraigned on felony assault charges two days after the June 4 incident outside City Hall but Erie County District Attorney John Flynn Jr. said earlier this month that the jury had dismissed the case.
The officers, both members of a police tactical unit, were initially suspended without pay but were back on the payroll 30 days later.
The incident is still the focus of an internal affairs investigation.
Gugino, who has since recovered from his critical head injury, filed a lawsuit against police, the city and the mayor just days after the grand jury dismissed the case.
The newly released footage shows Gugino approaching one of the officers, who could be seen carrying a baton, and saying: ‘You’re using those sticks’
It shows, for the first time, the view from the officer’s perspective after video from by a local reporter was widely shared at the time showing Gugino’s head hitting the ground with a sickening thud after being shoved
In the federal lawsuit, Gugino’s attorneys claim his constitutional rights to freedom of speech, peaceful assembly and due process, among others, were violated during the incident.
It also alleges forcible assault without warning by police officers.
The complaint names the City of Buffalo, Mayor Byron Brown, Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood, Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia and the two officers involved as defendants.
The lawsuit alleges that a third officer named as a defendant in the complaint, John Losi, was the one who instructed McCabe and Torgalski to shove him as the rest of the police team yelled: ‘Push him, push him’.
‘If the roles were reversed, and Gugino pushed a BPD officer who then fractured his skull, he would have been immediately indicted, and for good reason,’ Gugino’s attorney, Richard Weisbeck, said in a statement.
The elderly man could be seen falling and smacking his head on the ground. He spent four weeks in hospital recovering from his critical head injury
He spent four weeks in hospital recovering from his fractured skull. Footage from the scene caused outrage at the time after Gugino could be seen lying in pool of his own blood
The release of the footage comes just two weeks after a grand jury declined to indict the two officers, Aaron Torgalski (left) and Robert McCabe (right), who shoved Gugino