Some members of a St. Paul church are concerned about what they describe as the forceful arrest of a 15-year-old, who said he was standing up for his mother when he said an officer talked to her disrespectfully.

A crowd gathered around the officer and shouting ensued during the arrest at a church picnic in a Frogtown park Sunday. The officer said the teen was kicking and pulling away when he was trying to handcuff him, according to a police spokesman. Police cited him for disorderly conduct and arrested his mother on suspicion of obstructing legal process.

A fellow church member, Alex Weston, used a cellphone to record video of some of the incident. He said he wants to draw attention to a case he regards as police misconduct and to seek answers.

St. Paul Police Chief Thomas Smith “has seen the video, he’s aware of the situation, he’s aware of the community concern around it,” said police spokesman Steve Linders. The department is “reviewing what happened leading up to what was caught on video, what happened during the part that is on video and what happened afterward.”

The incident comes at a time of police-community tension around the country over officers’ use of force, in cases that often draw attention because they are captured on video. Police have also expressed concerns that anti-police sentiment is making their jobs more dangerous.

While officer Joel Johnston was trying to arrest the teen Sunday at Ryan Park, he called for help from fellow officers, and people from the crowd could be heard shouting in the background, according to audio of emergency radio traffic posted by MN Police Clips.

Before other officers arrived, Johnston expressed the need for backup — he shouted, “can I get some (expletive) help over here!,” and sounded out of breath, according to the audio clip. The officer soon said the situation was “kind of” under control, but then someone called police to report hearing three shots and said she believed a police officer was down. Police stepped up their response, though it was quickly determined there had been no shooting.

EARLIER ASSAULT

The incident began when police responded about 12:20 p.m. Sunday to a report of a 14-year-old being assaulted by four other juveniles with sticks, Linders said. An officer cited an 11-year-old for assault and was going to release him to his mother, when his older brother began yelling and swearing at the officer, Linders said.

The officer regarded the boy’s actions as disorderly conduct and was arresting him for that offense, Linders said. Tyree Tucker, the 15-year-old who was cited and released, had some visible scrapes on his face and elbows on Monday.

Tucker’s 11-year-old brother, Tyrell Tucker, said they had been attending the picnic for their church, St. Paul Fellowship. Another child, whom Tyrell thought was from the neighborhood and not part of the gathering, tried to hit him with a stick and threatened to kill him, Tyrell said. Tyrell said he grabbed a thin stick and whacked the boy with it to protect himself.

Police arrived and were going to take Tyrell away. Instead, the officer took him back to release him and told his mother, Edna Waddle, she needed to sign something, Waddle said.

“He said, ‘Just get your (expletive) kid and get out of here,’ ” Waddle said, adding that she was flabbergasted. “He was like, ‘What kind of (expletive) mother are you? You’ve got your fat (expletive) up at the (expletive) picnic table eating at the buffet when your son just assaulted somebody.’ “

Tyree Tucker said he responded along the lines of, “Don’t say that to my mother. You’re an officer. We’re going to get your badge number and have a complaint pulled on you.” Tyrell said his brother also called the officer, “You dumb bastard.”

The officer told Tyree Tucker he was under arrest, and the boy said he responded, “I’m not because I didn’t do anything. … You can’t put your hands on me,” and moved away from the officer.

Tyree Tucker, who is under 5 feet 3 inches tall and slender, said the officer slammed him against a tree and onto the ground.

The officer had his arm around Tyree Tucker’s throat and was telling him to put his arms behind his back, his brother said. Tyree said his brother had already done so with one hand, but could not with the other because the officer was twisting it.

Tyree Tucker and his family say he never touched the officer. In the video, Johnston can be heard shouting repeatedly, “Put your hands behind your back!”

GRABBED HIS PHONE

Weston, of St. Paul, attended his church’s annual outdoor worship service at the Avon Street park between Lafond and Thomas avenues, which drew more than 100 people. He noticed about 10 people in a circle and what appeared to be an officer pushing someone to the ground. He ran closer and, he said, saw the officer had Tyree Tucker pinned down, including the teen’s arms.

The officer’s forearm was under Tyree Tucker’s neck in what Weston described as a chokehold.

“If I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt, he may have been attempting to lift him to get his arms out from under him, but it really had the effect of making him not able to breathe,” he said. Weston said he, Waddle and others were shouting, “He can’t breathe!” Waddle said Monday that her son has asthma.

“In my opinion, it was totally out of line and not how you treat another person,” Weston said. He took out his cell phone and started recording, but said “the very worst of it” had already happened.

MOTHER RELEASED

Waddle, of St. Paul, was released from jail Monday pending further investigation; she has not been charged. In the video, she appears to grab at her son’s arm twice while the officer is trying to arrest him.

Waddle said she is planning to contact a lawyer and file a complaint over what happened Sunday.

Tyree Tucker is biracial and identifies as African-American, and the officer involved is white, said Waddle, who is white. The officer did not say anything to them of a racial nature, but she suspects race may have been at play in what happened.

Weston had continued recording on Sunday, as more officers arrived. The video shows people in the crowd shouted at police, including using profanity. One woman was saying, “How dare you hurt him like that! … He’s a child.”

The St. Paul NAACP is launching its own inquiry into what happened during the arrest, including gathering evidence and talking to witnesses, said Jeff Martin, St. Paul chapter president.

“We need to make sure what he did to that 15-year-old doesn’t happen again,” he said. “The officer showed an extreme lack of professionalism when you’re the person who’s supposed to be de-escalating and taking control.”

Martin said he likely would have reacted as Tyree Tucker did when he was 15, but now that he’s grown up and gone to law school, he has found “sometimes the safest place to assert your rights is in a court of law rather than the court of the streets.”

He said he wants to work with young people on trying to keep a cool head during interactions with law enforcement, so they can hopefully avoid being hurt or arrested and can safely seek justice later if they feel they were mistreated.

Johnston has been a St. Paul officer since 1994 and has seven medals of commendation. His last discipline came in 2008 when he received an oral reprimand, according to his personnel file. A homeowner had asked for Johnston’s information and he told her his badge number, but the department said that was a violation of their policy requiring officers to hand out their business card to anyone who asks for their information.

Leaders of the church and the police department have been in touch with each other about Sunday’s events, Linders said Tuesday.

“We’re certainly committed to having a dialogue with them and coming to an understanding of what happened, why it happened and what we can do to continue to improve community-police relationships across the city,” he said.

St. Paul Fellowship Church posted a statement to its Facebook page Tuesday, saying the church’s leadership “is distraught by the events following our service at Ryan Park last Sunday. We continue to have discussions with members of our congregation who were involved, as well as the police, regarding how this could have been prevented.”

The church’s statement continued, “These events were traumatizing to those who experienced them, and even to those who witnessed them. As might be expected in a situation of this nature, members of the congregation saw the same events in very different lights. But despite our potentially differing perspectives, we are united in our love for God, for the family in our church who was deeply affected, and also in our desire to see healing for all involved. As the body of Christ, we are called to work as ministers of reconciliation, and are pursuing opportunities to foster increased communication and trust between the police and members of the community.”

Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262. Follow her at twitter.com/MaraGottfried.