A man was arrested and threatened with pepper spray by police officers as he was dropping off food for his vulnerable mother during coronavirus lockdown.
Shocking footage shows an officer putting handcuffs on the man for ‘breaking covid rules’ before screaming ‘you’ll be next’ to a bystander in Fallowfield, Manchester.
Yesterday’s shocking arrest comes as police forces across the country face accusations of ‘heavy-handed’ lockdown tactics during their Easter weekend crackdown.
The video begins with the man being challenged as he stands outside his mother’s house.
A man was arrested and threatened with pepper spray by police officers as he was dropping off food for his vulnerable mother during coronavirus lockdown in Manchester
The man, who was running errands for his mother, explains to the officer that he’s ‘picking up a plant at the same time’.
The shocked man asks the officer: ‘Give me a ticket for what. You’re a bored guy there’s groups of people all over the place.’
But the officer presses him further asking: ‘What’s your details?’
The man replies: ‘I’m not giving you any details’
The officer then threatens the man with jail saying: ‘You gonna give me your details? I’ll just lock you up.’
The man asks what he will be arrested for and the officer replies: ‘For breaking covid guidelines. Put your hands on your head.’
The man puts his hands on his head and asks: ‘Am I being threatening towards you? Am I being threatening?’
The officer shouts: ‘Raise your hands or you’re gonna get sprayed. Put your hands behind your back.’
A woman can be heard shouting in the background as the officer puts the handcuffs on him.
The man appears to be in discomfort from the handcuffs and asks: ‘Why have you put them on like that man?
The video begins with the man being challenged as he stands outside his mother’s house (left). The situation escalates and the officer puts handcuffs on the man (right)
‘Twist that one top around. Twist it around! Loosen the top thing, loosen the top one man’
The police shoves the man from behind and takes him away in handcuffs.
One neighbour shouts ‘that’s excessive that mate’ while another says ‘that’s excessive officer, there’s no need for it.’
The officer pushes the man over a car and demands that he lean over it.
The man says: ‘You just keep saying things over and over again you’re not helping, you’re not diluting the situation you’re making it worse.
‘Because I come to drop some stuff off.’
He pleads with the cop to loosen the cuffs: ‘Can you loosen the top so I’ll be more compliant but I’m in pain right now.’
A female neighbour is then heard asking the police officer politely: ‘In the current situation in the current pandemic, there’s more pressing situations to be dealing with than coming over and bothering somebody going about his business – on his own?’
The officer then points at the woman and states: ‘You’ll be next.’
Another neighbour gasps at the cop’s threat to the innocent woman and he says to the brazen cop: ‘No-one will be next, you can’t threaten us!’
In the next clip, the cameraman’s mother is seen attempting to intervene with the officers after a second one arrives.
The cameraman shouts: ‘Don’t push my mum! Get your hands off my mum.’
The cameraman’s mother is heard calmly saying: ‘I’m a community member. I was coming to stand behind him. Don’t push me away – you’ve got people videoing here. I was coming to stand behind him.’
But the police officer says: ‘Well I don’t know that. Step away please.’
As the two officers try to put the man in the back of a car, he says: ‘You ain’t going to put me in the back of no car.
A video shows a South Yorkshire police officer scolding a family on their own doorstep for letting their young children play on their lawn during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has killed 7,978 people in the UK so far
‘I’m dropping food off to vulnerable members of my family who cant do nothing and I’m taking a tree home with me. ‘
As the man is arrested and put into the car, astonished neighbours ask in disbelief: ‘Are you arresting him?’
The cameraman answers: ‘Yeah he’s trying to give him a fine and arrest him, joke.’
Another shocked resident asks the officers: ‘But what’s his charge?’
To which the cameraman answers: ‘Cause he came to bring food for his vulnerable aunty and take the tree away.’
A police van was seen patrolling Hyde Park in London on Friday afternoon. This weekend a heavy police presence will be felt as police make sure people are not breaking social distancing rules
The widespread action in public places, pictured, comes as Downing Street has been forced to warn police officers against ‘heavy-handed’ lockdown tactics
Yesterday, a viral video showed a South Yorkshire police officer scolding a family on their own doorstep for letting their young children play on their front lawn.
The force later apologised for the encounter, which it called ‘well-intentioned but ill-informed’, after the officer told the young family: ‘You do not want your children getting the virus, it does not stop in front of your garden.’
Cambridge Police’s official Twitter account boasted that officers had visited a local superstore yesterday to snoop on shoppers and found aisles selling non-essentials were ’empty’.
The tweet caused outrage from social media users, with many pointing to a post sent by the same account hours earlier thanking a local chocolate shop for dropping off a ‘generation donation of goodies’ at its police station.