The Juneau Police Department officer involved in an arrest that sent a man to a Seattle hospital on Wednesday has been placed on administrative leave and an external agency will investigate his actions, Juneau City Manager Katie Koester said Friday.
The incident happened while police were responding to reports of a woman fighting with a man in front of the Douglas Public Library. The woman’s friend approached “in an aggressive manner” and was “taken to the ground,” according to a release by the department. Video posted to social media shows a Juneau police officer holding the man against a patrol car before suddenly dropping down and flipping the man over his head and into the sidewalk — at which point the man is not seen moving for the remainder of the video.
The man was first brought to Bartlett Regional Hospital before being medevaced to Seattle.
Koester writes that the officer was using “a technique designed to control the situation by bringing the suspect to the ground,” but that “this action went terribly wrong.”
“(City and Borough of Juneau) does not have information on his current medical status, nor do we have permission from the family to share that information,” she writes.
Juneau Police Department has requested an independent investigation by an unnamed external agency, Koester writes, and the case will also be reviewed by the Office of Special Prosecutions. Another internal investigation “will consider the technique and level of force used and if it was aligned with JPD police.”
Body camera footage of the interaction will be made available to the public, Koester writes, “within 30 days of the incident, or no later than August 30.”
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
