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A Purdue University police officer has been placed on indefinite leave after the officer was filmed earlier this month using his elbow to pin a Black student to the ground by the neck, the Associated Press reported.
Adonis Tuggle, 24, said the officer punched him and pressed his face into the ground on Feb. 4. Campus police chief John Cox told the AP the officer involved was responding to a call from a third party, who said “it appeared a woman was being held against her will.”
“He was smothering me, almost as if you were trying to drown somebody underwater,” Tuggle said. His girlfriend filmed the arrest, and the video went viral. Tuggle said he doesn’t know who called the police on him. Tuggle said he was arrested and charged with resisting arrest, and he spent an hour in jail before making bail.
Following the incident, Purdue’s Black Student Union held a town hall demanding the university take action and suggested independent oversight of Purdue’s police department, among other things.
Purdue said in a statement Thursday that Cox placed the officer on a “leave of absence after the officer and department received death threats.” Cox told the AP that his department was conducting an internal review of the officer’s conduct during the arrest and that Indiana State Police would also investigate the incident.
Purdue University president Mitch Daniels said in a statement that the investigation into the officer’s conduct would be “swift and thorough.”
“Should there be a finding of misconduct by the officer, appropriate action will be taken promptly,” he said.
