Washington: The mayor of Phoenix apologised on Sunday after videos emerged showing police in the US city violently arresting a family with young children. The videos, shot when the arrest happened in May, show police using foul language while shouting at the family to get out of their car, and threatening to shoot them.
A woman later emerges from the car with two young children. She hands them over to a bystander before being arrested.
Separately, an officer is shown kicking the legs of another man who he is handcuffing against a police car. “I, like many others, am sick over what I have seen in the video depicting Phoenix police interacting with a family and children,” Mayor Kate Gallego tweeted. Calling the officers’ actions “inappropriate” and “clearly unprofessional,” she wrote “There is no situation in which this behaviour is ever close to acceptable.”
“I am sorry for what the family went through, and I apologise to our community,” she said. In an appearance on a ABC affiliate, Phoenix police chief Jeri Williams said the officers responded to a report of shoplifting.
