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NYPD officer accused of stomping on woman’s head at George Floyd protest

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An NYPD officer has been hit with departmental charges for violently kicking a woman in the head during a Bronx George Floyd protest, the Daily News has learned.

Defending himself at his departmental trial in NYPD headquarters Wednesday — the agency’s first Hasidic officer — Lt. Joel Witriol said there was so much chaos and fighting going at the June 14, 2020 protest at the corner of E. 136th St. and Brook Ave. in Mott Haven that anything could have happened.

But he’s absolutely sure he didn’t purposefully stomp on the face of a woman protesting the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.

“There’s a difference between chaos and doing something on purpose,” Witriol explained. “Nothing was done on purpose.

“I did not kick her on purpose and I don’t believe I kicked her at all,” he said.

But the Civilian Complaint Review Board substantiated abuse of force charges against Witriol for assaulting the woman, identified as Alexandra Huber, while she was down on the ground.

Body camera footage and medical reports all conclude Witriol kicked Huber while she was being subdued for not complying with former Mayor de Blasio’s 8 p.m. curfew order, CCRB officials said.

The most damning piece of evidence was the body worn camera footage from another officer which shows Witriol stomping on the ground followed by a woman’s scream, Nicole Jardim of the CCRB’s Administrative Prosecution Unit said. The footage doesn’t actually show Huber getting hit.

“(Witriol’s) looking straight down at her. He lifts his leg up and he stomps,” Jardim said, describing the video during the one day departmental trial.

Huber suffered a black eye and a cut on her nose and was too traumatized to testify in person Wednesday.

If a department judge finds Witriol guilty of abuse of force, he could be fined 20 vacation days.

The lieutenant said the footage doesn’t show a stomping, but him losing his balance because of the “oil, water and urine” protesters were throwing at cops.

“I had just been maced,” Witriol said. “I felt it in my mouth all night.”

He claimed he did grab Huber and attempted to place her under arrest for violating the curfew. He admits to swing her around, but said he never knocked her to the ground and kicked her.

Instead he handed her to other cops who took her down with a leg sweep.

“She was still resisting when I handed her off,” said Witriol, who admits that he never turned his body worn camera…

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