An NYPD officer has been suspended without pay after a viral video captured him punching a 14-year-old girl in the head during an after-school fight on Staten Island \u2014 prompting a swift rebuke from Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday.
\nDuring an unrelated appearance, Adams said he was \u201cnot pleased with what I saw on the video,\u201d which was widely shared on social media.
\nThe footage showed the cop\u00a0\u2014 identified by sources as Nicholas Scalzo \u2014\u00a0pummeling the teen as he and another officer tried to break up a brawl that broke out near Edwin Markham Middle School at around 2:45 p.m. on Tuesday.
\n\u201cI jumped in and the cops came and were supposed to be breaking it up, but the cops got into the fight,\u201d the girl, Kyonna Robinson, told The Post on Wednesday from her Staten Island home.
\n\u201cThen everyone was just in handcuffs and my sister [was] in handcuffs,\u201d she said, \u201cand I went up to my sister and asked the cops, \u2018What are you doing?\u2019 and he pushed me and then I hit him two times and then he hit me 11 times,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cI thought they would break up the fight. I didn\u2019t think they would get into the fight.\u201d
\nThe officers were there on a foot post near Willowbrook Road and Forest Avenue and intervened in a fight between two girls, the NYPD said.
\nThe video showed the ensuing melee \u2014 with\u00a0the now-suspended cop seen unleashing\u00a0a barrage of blows at the back of the girl\u2019s head as other\u00a0students tried in vain to pull the teen away.
\n\u201cThere was a fight between two girls. We tried to intervene and it looks like one of the girls tried to stop us from intervening,\u201d an NYPD spokesman said.
\n\u201cThey tried to handcuff one of the girls,\u201d the spokesman said. \u201cAnd someone was pulling at them.\u201d
\nAdams said the cops\u2019 bodycams were now being reviewed as part of the internal probe into the incident.
\n\u201cA young girl was being jumped by two other children and the police intervened. It was NYPD, not school safety agents, and so we are going to look at the body cam of the police officers,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to use the video that was posted on Instagram. That\u2019s when it first came to my attention, and of my understanding, the police commissioner swiftly suspended the officer that was involved.\u201d
\nThe two girls,\u00a012 and 14, were arrested and later released without criminal charges as the probe continues, cops said.
\n\u201cI got\u00a0a knot on my head,\u201d Kyonna said. \u201cI still have migraines. I can feel where the knot on my head is without\u00a0touching it.
\n\u201cIf you are going to have officers like police officers, you should know that they\u2019re going to do the right thing, that they\u2019re not going to beat up on a 14-year-old,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n