Police officer caught pushing teenager off roof in bodycam video
Amazingly, suspect not injured by fall or police Taser
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Your support makes all the difference.A US police officer pushed a teenage suspect in a car theft off a roof, his department has said.
The sergeant who ordered his colleague to push the 18-year-old off the roof would have been fired had he not already resigned, the department said.
Bodycam footage has been released showing the incident unfold in Kissimmee, Florida.
Officers chased the teenager, accused of taking his girlfriend’s car without permission.
When police arrived at the suspect’s door, he fled upstairs to the roof.
Video shows officers telling the suspect to “come down” from the roof, which was nine-feet from the ground, according to WFTV.
The officer on the roof says: “You’re going to get Tased and you’re going to fall. So, you better jump.”
After the suspect refuses and asks to go out the window instead, the sergeant on the ground says: “Push him off the roof. Push him off. Just push him off. Push him off.”
The teenager was then shoved off and once he hit the ground he was Tasered by other officers.
Amazingly, the suspect was unharmed from the fall and the Taser but according to an internal investigation by the Kissimmee Police Department, he could have easily been seriously injured.
Kissimmee Police chief Jeff O’Dell said the suspect could have gotten a “significant injury”.
According to reports, the police officers involved were Sgt Anthony Amada and officer Plenio Massiah, but the suspect has not been named.
Mr Amada resigned from the police in June, when the internal investigation started, after being disciplined for a separate case, WFTV reports.
The police report said he would have been fired for the incident and his order to push the man was “not indicative of a supervisor with 14 years of experience”.
Mr Massiah was previously at the Daytona Beach Police Department before working in Kissimmee.
WFTV say that his records show this it the first time he has been disciplined. He was suspended for eight hours over the incident.
The police report also says that Mr Massiah feared that a struggle between him and the suspect could have led to them both falling off.
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