A police officer in Philadelphia was caught on video hitting a woman at the city's 50th Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade, then suspended after the brutal clip went viral.
Department officials have launched an internal investigation since the 36-second video was uploaded to YouTube Sunday and titled "Philadelphia Police Brutality."
The video shows the woman collapsing to the ground after being bashed in north Philadelphia. She appears to be bleeding as she is led away in handcuffs.
Moments before the woman (whose name has not been released) was hit, the video shows someone else throwing a liquid in the direction of police officers.
The woman was also seen spraying something from a can. She was cited for disorderly conduct, according to Officer Tanya Little, a police spokeswoman.
The officer in the video, identified as highway patrol supervisor Lt. Jonathan Josey, is reportedly eager to tell his side of the story to internal investigators.
There is more to what happened at the daylong neighborhood party than the video shows, said John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police.
"We're hoping that it's neither a whitewash nor a witch hunt," McNesby said. "At the end of the day, his actions will be questioned, but I believe they can be defended."
"There's a lot of tensions that are running high; there's a lot of arrests that are made," he said. "Each year people are arrested, and things aren't pretty."
McNesby said that from what he understands about how things unfolded that day, police were trying to stop a driver who was "doing 360s" in the road.
"A guy was spinning wheels and burning tires in the (road), police are trying to stop it and ... as we're doing it, things are being thrown, liquids are being tossed."
"It's great to sit back, look at video, second-guess yourself and play Monday morning quarterback, but again at the end of the day, we don't know what's coming at us."
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