Manchester Police suspend officer over airport incident caught on video

The officer then approaches another man who is sitting in a chair with his hands behind his head and appears to tell him to get on the ground. The man kneels on the ground and the officer stomps on his thigh and hits him on the head.

The incident has caused shock and outrage in England, where police officers are not usually armed and only use force when necessary. Various police forces have been accused of racism – and previous allegations of police brutality have sparked nationwide protests and unrest.

The unnamed male officer has been suspended and relieved of all duties and the incident has been reported to an independent police complaints watchdog, Greater Manchester Police said.

“We know that a film of an incident at Manchester Airport, which has been widely shared in the media, depicts a truly shocking event,” Assistant Commissioner of Police Wasim Chaudhry said in a statement. “The use of such force during an arrest is an unusual incident and we understand that it causes concern.”

Chaudhry said police had responded to “reports of an attack” at the airport before the footage was shown. “During our operation, three officers were attacked. One female officer suffered a broken nose and the other officers … sustained injuries that required hospital treatment,” he said, adding that four men had been arrested on suspicion of assault or obstructing police.

According to local media reports, hundreds of protesters took part in demonstrations in the area this week, some of them calling for the disbandment of the police or carrying banners reading “anti-racism.”

MP for Rochdale Paul Waugh said in a statement he had spoken to the family of the incident, who were among his constituents, “and it is clear that they are deeply traumatised by what happened.” He said the family, whose names he did not give, had asked for privacy.

Waugh demanded accountability and said police officers were “not above the law.” At the same time, he stressed that the family had told him to “call for calm” and stressed that they had “no political agenda” and “did not want to take part in any protests.”

“While this incident obviously causes great concern, it is also vitally important that extremists of any kind do not exploit these events for their own ends,” Waugh added, noting that the family had family members who worked in the police force. He also expressed concern for the injured police officer.

A lawyer for the family, Akhmed Yakoob, called the incident “police brutality” and demanded “justice.” He told reporters the family was “traumatized” and a scan had shown that one of the men had a cyst on his brain.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham described the footage as “disturbing” and said it was right that the officer involved had been suspended. But he warned that the incident was not “clear-cut”. He said he had seen evidence of “how the situation is escalating overall” and that “there are problems on both sides”, and called for calm.

Cases of police use of violence have been a source of debate in the past – most notably in 2011, when the shooting of black man Mark Duggan in London sparked riots that were described as the worst civil unrest in the United Kingdom in a generation. The clashes began in London but spread to several other cities, including Manchester.

In 2020, there were also protests in the United Kingdom in solidarity with the US protests following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Greater Manchester Police has been the subject of reports and allegations of racism. A 2021 report found that black people were arrested, tasered and searched by Manchester police more often than white people, while an equalities adviser said in 2023 that the police still “perpetuate racial discrimination”.

Elsewhere in the country, an official inquiry last year found evidence of racism, misogyny and homophobia in London’s Metropolitan Police and recommended a fundamental overhaul of the force to address deep-seated problems. The Metropolitan Police commissioned the inquiry after an officer admitted kidnapping, raping and murdering a woman on her way home, Sarah Everard, in 2021.