'Very disturbing': Chicago officer under investigation for body-slamming man to the ground

A Chicago police officer is under investigation after he was seen in a video body-slamming a man to the ground during an arrest Thursday on the city's South Side.

A 43-second video posted to social media depicts an officer pushing a man up against a car before lifting him and throwing him down to the curb, where the man's head smacks against the pavement. The man remains motionless as the people recording the video from a nearby car can be heard reacting in horror to the incident.

According to police, officers observed the 29-year-old man drinking an alcoholic beverage inside a bus stop around 4 p.m. Thursday in the city's Chatham neighborhood. The officers approached him, who police say became "irate," licked one officer's face and verbally threatened him. The man spat in the officer's eye and mouth, and the officer then "performed an emergency take down," police said.

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Officers immediately notified EMS, police said. The man was taken to the University of Chicago Hospital in stable condition. The 32-year-old officer, who has not been identified, went to an area hospital for evaluation.

Facebook user Jovonna Alexiss Jamison posted the video Thursday, and it had received 19,000 shares by Friday afternoon.

"I Pray To God That Boy Not Dead," Jamison wrote in the post.

Jamison told the Chicago Tribune that she was waiting at the red light when she saw an officer take a man’s beer away. The man was on the phone when an officer picked him up and slammed him onto the sidewalk curb, she told the Tribune.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi acknowledged the incident Thursday on Twitter, saying it was under investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability and being taken "very seriously."

Mayor Lori Lightfoot responded to uproar over the actions depicted in the video in a series of tweets Friday.

"While a single video does not depict the entirety of the interactions between the police and the individual, this particular video is very disturbing," Lightfoot wrote.

Police said charges were pending against the man. The name of the officer in the video is not being released at this time, police said.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the civilian agency that investigates police use of excessive force, is seeking additional information on the incident.

The accountability office evolved out of an earlier organization in the wake of the 2014 murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, when white officer Jason Van Dyke was caught on police dash cam video fatally shooting the black teen.

The Department of Justice launched an investigation into the Chicago Police Department after video of the shooting was released. The 13-month investigation later concluded that officers engaged in a pattern of using force in violation of civil rights.

Jamison and the University of Chicago Hospital did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chicago police body slams man in viral video, investigation ongoing