Two police officers who pushed a 75-year-old man to the ground during protests in New York after the murder of George Floyd have got their jobs back.
An arbitrator declared that Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski were justified in pushing Martin Gugino.
Mr Gugino spent a month in hospital with a brain injury after he was pushed backwards and hit his head on the pavement at the George Floyd protests in June 2020.
Jeffrey Selchick, the arbitrator, said on Friday that the officers had “no other viable options than to move Gugino out of the way of their forward movement”.
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He added: “The use of force employed by respondents reflected no intent on their part to do more than to move Gugino away from them.”
The protests were prompted by the murder of George Floyd, who died when a white police officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes during an arrest in Minneapolis in May 2020.
Mr Gugino’s lawyer, Melissa Wischerath, said: “We are not aware of any case where this arbitrator has ruled against on-duty police officers, so his ruling here on behalf of the police was not only expected by us, but was certainly expected by the union and city who selected and paid him.”
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Video footage from the protest shows the pensioner approaching a line of police officers wearing riot gear in Buffalo.
One of the officers pushes him with a baton before the other shoves him with his hand.
At the time Byron Brown, the mayor of Buffalo, described the incident as “disheartening”.
The video went viral on social media, attracting global widespread criticism against the police officers, who were suspended and charged with assault.
However, the charges were dismissed in February 2021 after a grand jury declined to indict the officers.
The Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, the union representing the police officers, labelled the incident a “political witch hunt”.
They said: “Thankfully, arbitrator Selchick saw through the political witch hunt that was levied against Torgalski and McCabe. True law enforcement and politics don’t mix.”
The two police officers will be back working on Monday.
