NYPD Cop Suspended After Punching Teen During After-School Scuffle
Two New York Police Department (NYPD) officers stand guard on Fifth Avenue in New York on February 23, 2016. 
Footage widely shared on social media showed an officer of the City of New York Police Department trying to break up a fight near a middle school on Staten Island.An officer of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has been suspended without pay after he was caught on camera landing blows on the head of an 14-year-old girl after being called in to break up a fight.A video of the incident has been widely shared on social media. It appears to show the cop, identified by US media-cited sources as Nicholas Scalzo, punching the teen while trying to break up a scuffle at around 2:45 p.m. on January 3 near Edwin Markham Middle School.© Photo : TwitterTwitter screenshot showing a teen appearing to be beaten by an NYPD officer near Edwin Markham middle school.
Twitter screenshot showing a teen appearing to be beaten by an NYPD officer near Edwin Markham middle school.The officer in question, along with his colleague, were on foot patrol near Willowbrook Road and Forest Avenue and intervened in the brawl that broke out between two girls, aged 12 and 14, according to the NYPD.“I jumped in and the cops came and were supposed to be breaking it up, but the cops got into the fight. Then everyone was just in handcuffs and my sister [was] in handcuffs, … and I went up to my sister and asked the cops, ‘What are you doing?’ and he pushed me and then I hit him two times and then he hit me 11 times… I thought they would break up the fight. I didn’t think they would get into the fight,” one of the girls, Kyonna Robinson, was cited as telling the media later.“There was a fight between two girls. We tried to intervene and it looks like one of the girls tried to stop us from intervening. They tried to handcuff one of the girls. And someone was pulling at them,” an NYPD spokesman said.The teens were arrested and later released without criminal charges, added the NYPD, with the investigation into the incident ongoing.The following day New York Mayor Eric Adams told journalists he was “not pleased with what I saw on the video,” adding:”A 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. We’re going to use the video that was posted… That’s when it first came to my attention, and of my understanding, the police commissioner swiftly suspended the officer that was involved.”
