The officers were seen laughing after shooting the rubber bullets at the protestors in Florida, in an official police bodycam footage.
After the appearance of Detective Zachary Baro’s video clip online revealing the shooting of rubbers bullets and tear gas, Fort Lauderdale Police Department was forced to release a full clip of the incident.
The shooting incident was unfolded on May 31, in Florida, when there was a dispute between the protestors and the SWAT team led by Baro. The video exposed the exchange of abusive comments between two officers making fun of the protestors who were shot with rubber bullets.
The bodycam released video shows the communication between Officers where Jamie Chatman asking Baro whether his bodycam is on or off to which he replied that it’s on standby mode and not recording anything, upon which they started laughing making fun of the protestor’s condition.
Originally the short footage was released by Miami Herald, who after securing the footage, pressurized and forced the police department to release the extensive 8-minute long video covering the whole event.
Fort Lauderdale City Manager Chris Lagerbloom took the notice of this unfortunate incident and released his statement on July 2 indicating his disappointment over the video while adding that how he wouldn’t want the public to develop the wrong perception of whole police department just because of unprofessional actions of some of the officers.
After Chris, there was another statement by the police department declaring the investigation of the incident, that “it is in the process of conducting an exhaustive review to include nearly 8,000 minutes of body-worn camera footage” that would extensively include the after-action report within next 30 days.
While the footage featured the officials laughing, there was also a note alongside that video stating how the video shows that the officers were also under attack by a group of protestors and were seen dealing with the chaos created by protestors.
After the incident officer Steven Pohorence was also charged with assault for pushing the kneeling protestor to the ground.