Two police cars drive into crowd of protesters in Detroit

"He just floored it...we went flying off. He ran over a couple people's arms, feet," protester claims

Two police cars drove into a crowd of people protesting against systemic racism and police brutality in Detroit on Sunday.

A video of the scene, which reportedly took place at around 9.30pm in southwest Detroit, shows one squad car driving through the group of protesters.

Detroit Chief of Police James E Craig said in a press conference on Monday that authorities were not aware if any protesters were injured during the incident, but said no officers in either car were hurt.

Ethan Ketner, who recorded the video, said that 10-12 people were struck by what he called the “reckless driver”.

“These officers drove into our protest after we walked past their vehicles. They did not need to drive past us for emergency purposes because they had other officers on the other side ready. This was a clear act of aggression,” he said in a Facebook post.

In Mr Ketner’s footage, one of the cars is surrounded by protesters who are chanting and waving signs as one demonstrator seemingly lays on the hood.

The car then accelerates and some protesters jump on the car’s bonnet while others move out of the way. The squad car breaks and accelerates a number of times as protesters scream and people are thrown from the vehicle.

Jae Bass, a 24-year-old demonstrator who said he was hit by the vehicle during the incident, told The Detroit Free Press that protesters were standing in front of the car until the crowd was safely out of the way.

“In response to that, he just floored it,” Mr Bass told the newspaper.

“He went super fast. Me and a couple of other organisers that were with me, just went flinging off. We went flying off. He ran over a couple people’s arms, feet. He ran over her phone. I think I was the last person on the car. I was just holding onto the car. I could feel him speeding up and then he did one of these and he flinged me off the car.”

Chief Craig said that two police cars were parked in a certain position to divert protesters from a main road before the vehicles were surrounded.

He claimed that the police car was “slowly moving, trying to get through” the crowd of protesters until one of the cars back window was smashed.

“Once they had heard the back window smash, it was very loud, they were not certain that they were not being fired upon so it was important for them to get out of there for their safety,” he said.

The chief provided an image of a smashed window of one squad car but could not provide footage of the back windscreen being smashed due to the limitations of “front forward-facing video”.

He estimated that the vehicles reached between 20-25 miles per hour during the incident.

Mr Ketner took to Facebook to dispute Chief Craig’s version of events.

“You’re lying to the people, your officer struck us with the vehicle before anyone touched it,” he wrote in response to the conference.

Chief Craig insisted that the city has seen weeks of non-violent protests and said that violence escalated due to a select number of demonstrators who were ”clearly agitated”. He also alleged that both cars had been attacked.

He confirmed that officers will remain on duty while an investigation into the incident, both in regards to the protesters and the police officers involved, is underway.

Activist group Detroit Will Breathe is demanding that officers who drove through the crowd be identified, fired, and brought up on charges and are asking for the resignation of Chief Craig.

“This shows a police force that feels too emboldened to put innocent lives at risk. The officer driving the SUV should be fired”, the group said in a statement.

“But this is not the only incident we have seen of police violence against protestors. Chief Craig must resign because he has failed to bring any accountability or transparency to the police force”, they added.