An Alabama police department said Monday that three white police officers who threw a black woman onto the floor of a Waffle House during an arrest on Sunday, threatened to break her arm, placed a hand on her throat and exposed her breasts, had acted appropriately.

The officers, from the Saraland Police Department, were sharply criticized after a cellphone video of the confrontation was posted on Facebook, with some calling them racist and overly aggressive. The footage starts with one of the officers standing over the woman, Chikesia Clemons, and trying to place her right arm behind her back as she sits in a chair.

The video then skips ahead, picking up as two officers grab Ms. Clemons’s arms and shoulders and toss her onto the restaurant floor. “What are you doing,” Ms. Clemons yells at the officers, as they try to bend her arms behind her back.