CNN Anchors Shocked By Ex-NYPD Detective Defending Brutal Arkansas Cop Video: They’re ‘Banging His Head on the Pavement’

CNN’s Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto were taken aback by comments by a retired NYPD detective defending the Arkansas cops seen in a viral video assaulting a suspect they were arresting, with Sciutto pointing out one of the officers could be seen banging the man’s head on the pavement.

The video was posted on social media Sunday and showed an officer and two deputies pinning a man to the ground and repeatedly striking him, punching him in the head, kneeing him in the back and side, and even slamming his head on the concrete pavement. All three cops involved — one with the Mulberry Police Department and two from the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office — have been suspended pending an investigation.

CNN reported additional details about the circumstances of the man’s arrest and the charges against him:

Crawford County Sheriff Jimmy Damante told CNN affiliate KHBS that the suspect was wanted for allegedly threatening a gas station clerk in a neighboring town. When he was spotted in Mulberry, Damante said the man was initially cooperative, but then tried to attack the officers, leading to the confrontation seen in the video. The sheriff told KHBS that the suspect was examined at a hospital and booked into jail, while a deputy received minor head injuries during the altercation.

Arkansas State Police identified the suspect as Randal Worcester, 27, of Goose Creek, South Carolina. Worcester is charged with second-degree battery, resisting arrest, possessing an instrument of crime, criminal trespass, criminal mischief, terroristic threatening as well as first- and second-degree assault charges, according to state police and jail records.

“Was that necessary — is that ever necessary?” Harlow asked retired NYPD detective and law enforcement consultant Tom Verni about the force used against Worcester.

“Just based on the video clip, it seems as if the amount of force that was being used may have been excessive,” Verni replied, noting that police are “trained in the use of force and what level of force is appropriate for the incident at hand.”

Verni then played “devil’s advocate” and said Worcester was “not complying”‘:

Now, as was reported, you know, we don’t see what happened leading up to that, and in the video itself, you can see that the suspect is not complying with the officers. He’s moving around. He’s not allowing them to place handcuffs on him to secure him to be able to be transported.

So playing devil’s advocate, when someone is resisting arrest, and they are refusing to comply with the police, what happens is that escalates that situation to where now police have to amp up their level of force from verbal commands to some level or varying levels of physical force, or other levels.

Sciutto was taken aback by Verni’s comments. “Forgive me,” the CNN anchor said, “because when I watch that video — and I’ve watched it a number of times — some of what I see the suspect doing is to cover his head.”

He asked Verni about whether there was police training “not just in level of force, but tactics, what specific means of force officers can and should use to subdue a suspect,” pointing out a “disturbing” moment in the video in which there were “multiple punches to the head” and “a point at which one of the officers appears to be banging his head on the pavement.”

“Is that tactic taught — right there — is that tactic taught in any police training to subdue a suspect?” Scuitto asked.

“That specific tactic of banging someone’s head in the ground? No,” Verni confirmed, but then added “if you’re in a fight for your life, you use whatever force is necessary to make sure you can escape from that incident unscathed, or as unscathed as possible.”

Verni also brought up the woman overheard on the video who is screaming he needs his medication, which he said “would seem to indicate he may need some sort of maybe anti-psychotic or other medication to control himself,” and “when people are supposed to be on medication and they are not, they many times will have the strength of ten men and it’s hard to subdue someone like that.”

“The video, itself, is disturbing,” Verni acknowledged, and if what the officers did was “outside the parameters of their training or unlawful in any way they will be held accountable,” and in this “specific incident” it did seem that “the force that they are using is somewhat excessive.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.