A news agency published a video clip of an off-duty police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, kneeling on the neck of a 12-year-old schoolgirl.
The video, released by Lincoln Middle School officials on Saturday, and obtained by the Associated Press news agency, shows a brawl between two students in the school cafeteria.
Then the officer, identified by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as Sean Gucho, responds immediately to break up the fight, and was working part-time as a school bouncer.
Gucho got into a short quarrel with the student before he pushed her to the ground and kneeled on her neck, and in the video he appears using the choke maneuver for about 25 seconds, before handcuffing her and taking her out of the cafeteria.
The other student is also taken out of the room by what appears to be another school employee, as the video shows.
The use of strangulation and the neck-knee maneuver was banned by police officers in Wisconsin in 2021, after the killing of black citizen, George Floyd, except for life-threatening or self-defense situations.
The girl’s father, Jeryl Perez, told the American newspaper, “The New York Post”, that his daughter is visiting a neurologist after the incident, which occurred on March 4.
Perez has called for criminal charges to be brought against Gucho, for using the restraint tactic prohibited against his daughter.
While the family’s lawyer, Drew Devine, considered in statements to the American network “CNN” that the officer’s knee had been on the girl’s neck for an “unreasonable amount of time”.
“This was a cruel act targeting a child, and is unacceptable in our community,” Deviny said in a statement.
The New York Times reported that the accused police officer, Sean Gucho, had resigned from his position at the school after the incident.