The Mayor of Buffalo has claimed a 75-year-old peace activist who was shoved to the ground during a Black Lives Matter protest was an "agitator" who was "trying to spark up the crowd."
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown spoke out after shocking footage emerged of protester Martin Gugino being shoved to the ground by two police officers in Buffalo, New York, on Thursday.
After the clip went viral on social media, the two officers were suspended, causing outcry amongst their colleagues with 57 members from the Buffalo Police Department's Emergency Response Team resigning in support.
The mayor said he will not call for the officers to be fired amid the ongoing investigation, adding it was "very important they get due process."
Mr Gugino, a longtime peace activist from Amherst, had been at a protest at Niagara Square near Buffalo City Hall when he approached a line of officers in riot gear after the city's 8pm curfew went into effect.
Mr Brown said: "What we were informed of is that that individual was an agitator. He was trying to spark up the crowd of people.
"Those people were there into the darkness. Our concern is when it gets dark, there is a potential for violence.
"There has been vandalism, there have been fires set, there have been stores broken into and looted.
"According to what was reported to me, that individual was a key major instigator of people engaging in those activities."
He also addressed the police department's initial statement on the incident which said Gugino had "tripped and fell."
He said: "I will be the first to say that initial communication was an error, but it was a desire to respond to media inquiries really quickly and to provide information to the community quickly."
Footage of the incident emerged on Thursday. In the unsettling video Mr Gugino can be seen walking towards a wall of heavily armed police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest.
He stops and looks to be telling several officers something, before two of them appear to push him backwards.
The man, who is slender and has grey hair, falls onto the pavement and hits his head.
Blood can be seen pouring out of his ear onto the stone.
One of the officers makes to kneel down as if to help him, before one of his colleagues gestures for him to walk on.
At the end of the video a man in camo-uniform can be seen tending to the man.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz tweeted on Friday morning that a hospital official said Mr Gugino was "alert and oriented."
The two police officers involved were suspended following the incident prompting 57 members from the Buffalo Police Department's Emergency Response Team to step down.
While they have not quit the force altogether, they are no longer in the tactical unit, Buffalo News reported.
"Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of their members, who were simply executing orders," Buffalo Police Benevolent Association President John Evans told the Investigative Post.
He added: "I don't know how much contact was made. He did slip in my estimation. He fell backwards."
Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, condemned the clip in a press conference.
“You see that video and it disturbs your basic sense of decency and humanity,” he said.
“Why? Why? Why was that necessary? Where was the threat? It was an older gentleman. Where was the threat?
"And then you just walk by the person when you see blood coming from his head."
The protest in Buffalo was just one of dozens that have taken place across the US and the world in the wake of George Floyd's death.
The unarmed black men was killed when a police officer placed his knee on his neck for almost nine minutes during an arrest.
Mr Floyd's death is now being treated as a murder.
