A cellphone video showing San Francisco police officers pinning and handcuffing a black man while sitting on his prosthetic leg has sparked anger on social media.

The footage has been viewed more than 300,000 times since being posted on Monday, emerging amid a national debate over police use of force, particularly against minority groups, following the deaths of a number of unarmed black men at the hands of police.

The 11-minute video opens with five officers straddling and attempting to handcuff the struggling man. One officer can be seen kneeling directly on his prosthetic leg, which appears to have been spun around in the scuffle, as the man’s sneaker points the wrong way.

In the video’s opening seconds, an officer accuses the man of biting him. The man can then be seen kicking as officers attempt to subdue him.

Throughout the video, the man can be heard saying he is in pain and repeatedly asking officers to get off of him. His pants can also be seen falling below his buttocks, where they remain for several minutes before officers pull them back up.

“This is how you treat citizens? You’re having him partially nude while you pin him down on his prosthetic leg?” said Chaédria LaBouvier as she recorded the video. “You don’t protect and serve this community if that’s policing to you.”

LaBouvier, a journalist, posted the video with an article published on the website Medium. She wrote that while walking in San Francisco’s Mid-Market area, she saw “a limping Black figure, wearing black, increasingly cornered by a wall of blue”.

LaBouvier said she pulled out her phone “as fast as she could” and started recording. Other people can be seen doing the same, a reaction that has been increasingly common during violent encounters between police and citizens over the past year.

One officer can be heard assuring LaBouvier that she is “more than welcome to film” as he asks her to move back, but as more officers arrive they appear to stand around the ongoing altercation in an attempt to obstruct the view of smartphone cameras. Once about 12 officers have arrived, a wheelchair is brought to the man and the clip ends.

San Francisco police spokeswoman Grace Gatpandan said officers encountered the 42-year-old man waving around wooden sticks and detained him for a mental health evaluation as he walked toward street traffic. Witnesses in the video can be heard saying the man used the sticks as his crutches.

Gatpandan said several responding officers knew the man, who had an outstanding felony warrant for aggravated assault.

She said police had not seen any video leading up to the incident, but added that police chief Greg Suhr and others would “look into this situation thoroughly and determine if there were any violations of department policy”. She said the case was also sent to the independent office of citizen complaints.

Many reacted to the video on social media, calling the use of force excessive.

“What everyday racist policing looks like: unnecessary force, brutal disrespect and little humanity,” said Twitter user Karen Breakey.

In a previous controversy involving San Francisco police, prosecutors in May dismissed eight criminal cases involving arrests linked to 14 officers who traded racist and homophobic text messages.

Reuters contributed to this report