Police Brutality Caught On Camera: Stomping On Man’s Head During Airport Arrest

A police officer kicked and stomped on a man’s head during an arrest in terminal 2 of Manchester Airport in the U.K. on Tuesday.

The officer is seen holding a taser over a man lying prone on the ground. He kicks the man in the face and stomps the back of his head twice while trying to arrest suspects involved in a violent altercation that appears to have been between passengers. Police were called to the scene and three officers were “punched to the ground.” A female officer’s nose was broken, and all three were hospitalized. That… escalated the police response.

According to an eyewitness, police approached a young man in his early 20s, informing him that he was a wanted man. As officers pinned him against a wall, another man intervened, leading to a scuffle. The pinned man began throwing punches before being tasered and falling to the ground, at which point the police officer kicked him.

Four men were arrested and charged with assault on emergency service workers and fighting in a public place that disturbs the peace.

On the one hand many will see this video and respond ‘FAFO’ but others will see a disproportionate response – violence used in a way meant to do more than subdue the suspect and reserve judgment for the criminal justice process, but rather mete out punishment or revenge directly.

Nonetheless, I’d counsel against doing anything that leads to the ‘finding out’ portion, because that never ends well.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Seeing this video makes me appreciate our great country even more. I think we do not show appreciation to our country enough. At least the police here do not kick on people’s heads like that when they are on the ground.

  2. T – I’m not sure sarcasm is the right tone for responses to videos like this.

    The offending officer should be jailed in gen pop.

  3. Anyone stupid enough to attack a uniformed cop is asking for trouble. I’m not excusing the cop’s reaction but it’s tough to see how it could end well for the attacker.

  4. Seems like the British police are learning bad lessons from their American counterparts or are back to behaving like they did in Northern Ireland but now instead of the Irish getting abused by the British police it’s Britain’s “brown” and “black” being subject to police brutality.

    In the meantime we have armed LAPD on the streets of Paris (France) for the Olympics.

  5. The racist Nioh Berg can’t even get her facts straight. Contrary to what the bigot says in her included tweet above, the guys assaulted in the video aren’t “Islamist”.

  6. The violence routinely meted out by our “public safety” workers is very disturbing. For the average person, these individuals provide very little benefit and actually, cause more anguish than relief.

  7. Hang on. So these guys put three cops in the hospital. To insure there’s not a fourth I would consider this an appropriate response. Not sure a couple of 147 grain JHP center of mass wasn’t called for.

  8. H2oman still advocating for summary execution of unarmed civilians by armed “law enforcement”. Fascist much?

  9. @GUWonder
    Fight and injure a cop and get what you’ve got coming. I have no sympathy for the feral humans that are on the rise. Threat neutralization is important when dealing with animals.

  10. GUWonder is one of the brilliant university graduates that excuses criminal behavior because his Marxist professors told him that all anti-social behavior is caused only by wealth inequality. Thus he believes criminals are the victims and not responsible for their actions.

  11. In 2021, where was H2oman on the January 6th insurrection in US capital? Would H2oman have supported “law enforcement” machine-gunning down the Lord MAGA worshippers (who were bashing the US Capitol Police) and the possible supporters and companions of the “stop the steal” MAGA lovers behind them?

  12. Wesley supports a convicted criminal in the election for US President, and yet he wants to lecture others by beating a dead-horse he pulled out of his own imagination. He’s got the level of honesty that can be expected from his brain-damaged MAGA Lord set on repeat.

  13. @GUWonder
    Absolutely. I would have used any force necessary to protect the Capital. The same as I would have the federal building in Portland. As long as we let anarchist from either side off with a pass we slip further down the slope. Let me throw a shocker at you. I didn’t support Trump in 2020, nor Biden. I’m an independent and voted that way. Can’t stand any of the mainstream candidates. I’m not allowed to vote in the primaries because I won’t pick a party (learned that one years ago at my polling place) but I can vote in the general. I’m hoping I live long enough to see both parties fail (our founding fathers warned us about that). But now I know exactly what party you subscribe to. Ain’t everything black or white. Oh and you really want me to blow your mind. I drive a hybrid.

  14. @H2oman, do you think the killing of Ashli Babbitt was justified? How about George Floyd?

    If you answered differently, why? Seems like you may be saying “rules for thee but not for me.”

  15. You’re comparing apples to kumquats. I made my point perfectly clear in my last post. You need to read it again. Find somebody else to have a straw man argument with.

  16. H2oman I proudly voted for Biden against Trump. I even proudly voted for Hillary Clinton despite my being no fan of hers. That’s a reflection of how low an opinion I’ve had about Trump going back to even when Reagan was President.

  17. Absent knowledge of all facts, I find it difficult to comment intelligently. I do, however, take umbrage at Nioh Berg’s depiction of the man being kicked as “Islamist”; because he’s non white?
    How does someone like her amass 100 thousand followers? Dear, dear me!

  18. When I asked H2oman this

    “ Would H2oman have supported “law enforcement” machine-gunning down the Lord MAGA worshippers (who were bashing the US Capitol Police) and the possible supporters and companions of the “stop the steal” MAGA lovers behind them?”

    The answer was “Absolutely.” I am not sure what is more shocking, the honesty of answering the question or the idea that he thinks it’s ok to machine-gun unarmed protesters around the US Capitol building. The tolerance for state actor brutality ought to be considered terrifying. And it ought to terrify you for at least two reasons: 1) monstrous state actors do more of what they can get away with doing with impunity and one day that may mean you or someone you care about is more likely to be the target; and 2) a brutal state fosters a brutal society and one that increases criminality and institutional breakdown over the longer term.

  19. Scudder is right. And the power-tripping police in that video were just itching for an excuse to kill someone and then ride high on “it was self-defense” and “qualified immunity”. Immunity from criminal prosecution under color of authority is a very dangerous thing and needs to be further restricted than the Trump-stacked Supreme Court is inclined to do. Dangerous, power-hungry people imbued with immunity will do as seen in that video: abuse the power and put people’s lives unnecessarily at risk. And such people even enjoy the idea of violent attacks on unarmed people who dare to peacefully oppose them. That is the danger of the guy who won’t the 2016 US Presidential election. And re-elected versions of such characters tend to be an even more extreme examples of themselves during subsequent terms than during their initial term in office.

  20. GUWonder
    You plucked one word. I said use the force necessary to protect the capital. If that is required then so be it. You have to use extremes to prove your point. But I would have stopped them with force if necessary. Humans will push the limit. That’s why we need law enforcement and the military. You must be one of those that want to defund the police.

  21. I believe in funding the police a lot more but subjecting the police to frequent psychological testing to see if they are suited for the job of serving the whole public while armed with guns. That and get rid of qualified immunity as it exits now and replace it with something far more tailored than what is currently the case. Also the end of police unions so the bad apples can be tossed and the good apples become more common.

    By the way, the risk of being subject to a violent crime in the US is at a 50 year low now? If so, the record low in violent crime is not because of police brutality — it’s down despite it.

  22. Yeah, let’s just have a fair fight and allow the suspect to break another officer’s nose and put more officers in the hospital. After all, three in the hospital isn’t really enough, is it?

  23. Where is the evidence of when, where, how and whom — if anyone among the people pictured in the video — broke a police person’s nose at the airport or of how any other claimed injuries on the police took place at the airport.

    It’s not like the police are always beyond misrepresenting the situation to try to create narratives meant to try to deny or dismiss wrongdoing on the part of the authorities. The more violent a police person is the more likely they are to be manipulative and coercive even when it’s not required for the police to protect and serve the public. In other words, except a violence-loving police officer to be more likely to lie and get others to lie when facing reports of police wrongdoing.

  24. @GUWonder. I’m generally with you on what you’ve replied upthread but- unarmed protesters? 1/6? they literally broke down doors and windows, brandishing everything but guns, and killed a cop in the process. They were doing similar things in the Portland rioting.
    Unarmed protests are one thing, both of those incidents are more than that.
    I would venture that had it been at the White House, they would indeed have been fired upon.

    And this latest BS in DC with all the vandalism? The minute that starts, the protest needs to be ended. We all have a right to peacefully protest, emphasis on peacefully.

  25. Hi Peter,

    On January 6th (2021) around the US Capitol, there were the insurrectionist protesters who engaged in anti-government violence or taking advantage of the anti-government violence and engaged in criminal activity. But there were also a large number of unarmed protesters and even curious observers on and around the US Capitol grounds — who never went inside the Capitol building nor tried to physically interfere with the official proceedings to certify the electoral vote count and didn’t necessarily violate any laws befitting federal prosecution. In that context and others, police actions need to be targeted and proportional — no less so when there are mix of individuals involved, many of which are exercising their First Amendment and other constitutional rights while some or many others in the mix are violating the law but are in close proximity or floating back and forth with the many who are not violating the law. Merely being a useful idiot for Trump while there were other useful idiots for Trump doesn’t justify police engaging in indiscriminate violence and committing a massacre against a mixed crowd of people.

    Nothing breeds more anti-government extremism than a government massacring unarmed people and otherwise engaging in excesses against people subject to the government’s power.

    In a civilized country, police and prosecutorial action should be targeted at the individuals who engaged in criminal wrongdoing and not be part and parcel of collective punishment to erode on constitutional rights even of — and especially of — people’s whose actions and opinions with which we disagree strongly. Where they engage in collective punishment, the country becomes more barbaric and society more reflects its barbaric government. That is why machine-gunning all the “stop the steal” clowns would have been a counterproductive thing to do to try to protect the institutions of democratic republicanism in the country.

  26. “mike s” finds it easy to engage in name-calling, but what else to expect from someone obsessed with me like he is. 😉

    But since even a bird-brained parrot can toss out names easily, let’s give “mike s” a chance to demonstrate his brain power is well in excess of that of the bird-brained or a trained monkey. Let’s see if the idiot name-caller can demonstrate his point about me supposedly being an idiot? Or better yet, let’s see him try to make a coherent argument with facts against my statements above.

    Good luck, “mike s”.

  27. Just watched the little video posted on *X* and in some ways it’s rather disturbing because what the cops were doing was Absolutely Illegal. You do NOT continue to brutally attack a suspect once they are down on the ground because an officer could be held accountable for police brutality and be prosecuted for such actions and to me,I think those types of officers should be prosecuted for committing such actions and they should be thrown in jail for life. You do not beat up suspects and expect to get off scott free with hiding under the immunity thing

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