The video, posted online, is 23 seconds long and shows three officers holding a man to the ground outside the emergency room at St. Luke’s Hospital-Sacred Heart.
On Sunday night, the chief released a statement in which he describes the police account of what happened before the cellphone camera began to capture the incident.
At 6:42 p.m. on Saturday, police say, the officers were at the hospital for an unrelated reason when they saw a man vomiting and staggering in the street and then stopping on the driveway of the hospital’s emergency room.
Granitz says the man began to “yell, scream and spit at the officers and hospital staff.” As officers tried to restrain him, they all fell to the ground, and the man continued to be “non-compliant.”
“We want immediate release of the body cam footage leading up to, including and after the arrest,” said Justan Parker, leader of Black Lives Matter to Lehigh Valley.
There is no mention of an arrest in Granitz’s statement, nor any potential charges against the man. The chief said the man was treated and released from the hospital.
Granitz describes the video posted online as “significant” and added, “the entirety of the interaction is being reviewed.”
He says police are talking to witnesses and reviewing more videos, and they plan to release some later in the week. The Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office is looking into the incident as well.