Eric Hightower was lying on the ground, coughing and choking because a St. Paul police officer had just squirted him with a chemical spray, when he said the officer suddenly kicked him.

“It was like he was kicking a football or something,” the 30-year-old man said Wednesday, Aug. 29, the day after his arrest, after a video of the officer’s use of force was posted on YouTube. “He kicked me so hard, he knocked the wind completely out of me.”

St. Paul Police Chief Thomas Smith said Wednesday that he called for an expedited internal affairs investigation as soon as he saw the video, which he said “raised some serious concerns about the use of force of one of my officers.”

The video shows an officer, whom Smith identified as Jesse Zilge, kicking Hightower. After Hightower was handcuffed, Zilge and another officer slammed Hightower’s face into a squad car hood, according to the video, which also shows officers apparently pulling the man’s hair.

Smith has placed Zilge on paid administrative leave.

Police were looking for Hightower for allegedly threatening to kill an acquaintance, said Howie Padilla, St. Paul police spokesman. Officers arrested him Tuesday about 6 p.m. by Lewis Park at Woodbridge and Milford streets.

“The video of a St. Paul police officer striking a suspect raises serious questions about the conduct of the officer,” St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said in a written statement. “I spoke to Police Chief Tom Smith and he has begun a full investigation.

“I grew up in St. Paul having full confidence in the St. Paul Police Department,” Coleman continued. “I have high expectations for the department and its employees. We will fully investigate and take appropriate action.”

St. Paul Police Federation President Dave Titus responded angrily to the mayor’s statement.

“This cop was dealing with a very dangerous individual in a very dangerous situation,” he said. “Back-up was not immediately available. And maybe our officials shouldn’t make comments about their concern until the investigation has run its course. This is a good cop.”

Titus said he couldn’t elaborate on what made it a dangerous situation. “It will be very clear in the investigation,” he said.

Hightower was arrested on suspicion of making terroristic threats, obstructing legal process and criminal damage to property. He has not been charged. He spoke in an interview at the Ramsey County jail, and denied police allegations in this case.

The St. Paul man said he and his friends were on their way to Lewis Park in the North End when an officer approached in a squad car, and jumped out holding chemical irritant.

“He never asked me, ‘What’s my name?’ He never asked me for my ID or nothing,” Hightower said. “He said, ‘Everybody on the ground.’ We all stopped and were like, ‘What’s going on? Why?’ ”

Then, Hightower said the officer, whose name he didn’t know, singled him out and told him to get down and started spraying the chemical irritant. Hightower said he wanted to know why.

Hightower said he never resists arrest. Asked whether the officer could have viewed him as resisting for not getting on the ground right away, Hightower said, “Why would I get down on the ground when you still haven’t told me what was I under arrest for? I don’t feel like I was obligated to get down on the ground just because you said so.

“He said, ‘Get on the ground’ one time, and then he turned around and said, ‘Get on the ground’ a second time but as he was saying it, he was already spraying his Mace. So I was like, ‘OK, yeah I’m going to get on the ground,’ and I got on the ground.”

On the ground, Hightower said he continued to ask the officer what he did wrong.

“He still wouldn’t tell me,” Hightower said. “He just kept telling me, ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up.’ My friend and my sister were telling me, ‘Just turn over, just turn over. We don’t want him to do nothing to you. We’re recording everything.’ I was like, ‘First, I want to know what I’m turning over for, you know what I’m saying?’ He’s got to at least tell me something.”

As he went to turn over, Hightower said the officer pulled out his Taser and pointed it at him, but didn’t use it.

“He started getting agitated, he put the Taser back and pulled the Mace out and was like, ‘Turn the (expletive) over.’ He sprayed me in my face again. I was laying on my side, I was hocking up the stuff, it was choking me and he ran towards me, kicked me in the chest, kicked me in the chin.”

Hightower said the officer also grabbed him by his hair during the encounter, and used other force.

Officers tried to put Hightower in the squad head-first, he said, and the initial officer who stopped him kept spraying him with chemical irritant.

“He held my head down and Maced me in the right ear,” Hightower said. “I can’t even hear anything out of my right ear. My whole right side of my face is completely numb, my skin is irritated.”

During the arrest, with many people watching and recording it on their cell phones, Hightower said the officer kept saying, “Hurry up, let’s get him out of here, let’s get him out of here, let’s get him going.”

At the jail, Hightower said he was put in a holding cell and his pants were taken away. He said he was there in his boxer shorts, socks and T-shirt, banging on the door, “Please, can someone please help me” until nearly 1 a.m.

“I could not hear and I could not see,” he said. “My eyes were so bloodshot red and so swollen.”

Hightower said he was later allowed to go to a room with a water fountain, where he flushed out his face. He said he also received ice packs for swelling on his chest, and saw nurses in the jail several times.

Ramsey County sheriff’s spokesman Randy Gustafson said Wednesday night that he didn’t have information about Hightower’s time in the jail, so couldn’t comment.

The video was posted to YouTube by Angela Hulbert, who said a friend gave it to her. She is a friend of Hightower’s and two of her children witnessed what happened.

“I really think they (the officers) need to be reprimanded,” she said. “That’s just so uncalled for. He wasn’t resisting arrest, he was doing everything he was asked to do.”

Hulbert said she contacted the mayor’s office Wednesday and spoke with a sergeant in internal affairs.

Savanah Wellman, Hulbert’s 9-year-old daughter, said she saw Hightower, known as “Nelly,” on the ground. Police were saying he had hit someone the night before and Hightower was denying it, she said.

“I was thinking that was really not acceptable to kick him like that,” she said.

A lot of people at the park saw what happened, including children, Savanah said. A birthday party was underway.

Police Chief Smith said Wednesday, “I want to know the entire story. I want to know what happened before this video started, exactly what everybody saw at the scene, both civilians and officers, and what they heard during the suspect’s arrest.

“I want to know what happened from start to finish in this instance… The public has a right to know as well.”

A police report says Zilge was the primary reporting officer and Steven Petron was the secondary reporting officer.

Smith said Wednesday he was not familiar with Zilge’s personnel record — including any previous disciplinary action — and did not know how long Zilge had been with the force. In 2006, Zilge appeared in a Pioneer Press article as a police officer for St. Paul Park.

Smith said Zilge was placed on leave while the investigation takes place.

On Wednesday evening, several parents and grandparents watching their kids run around the Lewis Park playground and said they worried most about the lessons their children learned the night before.

Elizabeth Fulin, who was watching her children, ages 7 and 5, said, “That officer drove through the park before he arrested him. He seen all the little kids. They were having a birthday party.”

“That guy did not do anything threatening. He was not resisting. He didn’t run,” Fulin added. “All the kids stopped doing what they were doing and ran over and watched what happened.”

Hightower’s criminal history includes convictions for violating an order for protection, obstructing legal process and petty theft. He was charged in 2011 with fifth-degree drug possession and third-degree assault, and has pleaded guilty to both.

In the drug case, residents in the 800 block of Rice Street in St. Paul called 911 in July 2011 after they saw Hightower selling drugs in the alley. When one person told him to leave, he threatened to “beat his ass,” according to the criminal complaint. Witnesses told police that Hightower started chasing people and grabbed a golf club someone was holding.

Police later found suspected crack and marijuana in Hightower’s buttocks, the complaint said.

The assault case stemmed from an August 2011 incident in which Hightower greeted an acquaintance with, “What up, boy?” according to a criminal complaint. The man took offense at the term “boy” and they started to argue. The man told police that Hightower punched him in the face, knocking out his two front teeth.

Hightower is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 14 on both the drug and assault cases from 2011.

Tad Vezner and Emily Gurnon contributed to this story. Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262. Follow her at twitter.com/MaraGottfried or twitter.com/ppUsualSuspects.