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 then stomps on his thigh and hits him on the head.

The incident sparked shock and outrage in England, where police officers are not routinely armed and are only allowed to use force when necessary. Several police forces have been accused of racism — and previous allegations of police brutality have sparked protests or riots that have swept the country.

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

“We know that a widely circulated film of an incident at Manchester Airport shows an event that is truly shocking,” Assistant Chief Constable Wasim Chaudhry said in a statement. “The use of such force during an arrest is an unusual occurrence and one that we understand will cause concern.”

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

Hundreds of protesters joined demonstrations in the area this week, with some calling for the dismantling of the police or holding up anti-racism banners, local media reported.

Rochdale lawmaker Paul Waugh said in a statement that he had spoken to the family involved in the incident, who were his constituents, “and it is clear they are deeply traumatised by what has happened.” He said the family, whom he did not name, had asked for privacy.

Waugh called for accountability and said police officers were not “above the law,” while stressing that the family had told him to “appeal for calm” and insisted they had “no political agenda… and did not want to participate in protests.”

“While there is clearly deep concern about this incident, there is also a vital need not to allow extremists of any stripe to hijack these events for their own purposes,” Waugh added, noting that the family had members who worked in the police force. He also expressed concern for the injured female police officer.

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

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham described the video footage as “disturbing” and said the officer involved was right to be suspended. However, he warned that the incident was not “clear cut”, saying he had seen evidence of “the full situation as it escalates” and that “there are issues on both sides”, as he appealed for calm.

Incidents involving police use of force have been a flashpoint in the past — most notably in 2011, when the shooting of a black man, Mark Duggan, in London sparked riots that were described as the worst civil unrest in the UK in a generation. The clashes began in London but spread to several other cities, including Manchester.

Protests also broke out in the United Kingdom in 2020 in solidarity with the US protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The Greater Manchester Police Force has been the subject of reports and accusations of racism. A 2021 report found that black people were more likely to be arrested, Tasered and frisked by Manchester police than white people, while an equalities adviser said in 2023 that the force was still “perpetuating 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 sweeping overhaul of the force to tackle deep-rooted problems. The Metropolitan Police ordered the inquiry after an officer admitted abducting, raping and murdering a woman, Sarah Everard, who was walking home from work in 2021.