A second senior New York police officer is being formally investigated over allegations that he assaulted an Occupy Wall Street protester, raising fresh questions over the NYPD's deployment of supervisors on the front line in volatile public order situations.

The officer, who has been named in news reports as deputy inspector Johnny Cardona, was filmed on Friday grabbing the protester from behind, spinning him round and appearing to punch him in the face so hard that he fell to the ground.

The New York Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent mayoral agency that deals with allegations of excessive or unnecessary force against police, is now investigating the incident, along with a number of other complaints over policing of the protests.

This is the second inquiry the board has launched in the last month into an alleged assault by a senior NYPD officer on Occupy Wall Street protesters. It is also investigating the use of pepper spray on peaceful female protesters by another deputy inspector, Anthony Bologna, who is also the subject of an internal NYPD inquiry.

Linda Sachs, a spokeswoman for the CCRB, said she could not comment on individual officers, but confirmed that the alleged assault was among several being investigated.

"We have several ongoing investigations involving police interactions with protesters. That includes events that occurred on Friday. Those events were videotaped," Sachs told the Guardian.

The victim of the alleged assault, Felix Rivera Pitre, has called for an investigation into Cardona's conduct. Over the weekend, new video was released of an earlier demonstration which appears to show him roughly handling a female protester from the same group that was later pepper-sprayed by Bologna.

Pitre's lawyer, Ron Kuby, who specialises in cases of alleged police brutality, has written to the New York district attorney, Cyrus Vance, demanding a "full, complete and lengthy investigation" into Friday's incident.

The NYPD has neither confirmed nor denied the identity of Cardona as the officer involved in both incidents. A senior police spokesman, Paul Browne, said Rivera was wanted for questioning for allegedly having provoked the confrontation by trying to elbow a police officer, which the officer deflected.

Browne said: "Others in the crowd jumped on the officer when he tried to apprehend the suspect. When the officer got to his feet, he was sprayed in the face with an unknown liquid coming from the suspect's direction."

Kuby has denied that his client was involved in any wrongdoing.

The new investigation has renewed doubts over the NYPD's use of supervisory officers – those wearing white shirts denoting the rank of lieutenant or above – on the ground during large protests.

One expert told the Guardian that the white-shirted officers were in the "hottest seat", even though they may have less experience in public order situations than their rank-and-file colleagues.

Gene O'Donnell, a former NYPD office and prosecutor who is now a professor of law and police studies at the City University of New York, said large protests were policed by a "hodgepodge" of different units. While each borough has a task force for rapid crowd control, other officers from non-specialist units and outer boroughs are also drafted in to bolster the numbers.

"There's friction between cops and their leaderships that gets exposed," said O'Donnell. "That's when you have the potential for over-reaction from people with white shirts. It's a very difficult place for a middle manager to be.

"They are supposed to be the ones giving the signals and setting the tone but that's the hottest seat. It doesn't get any hotter than being on the barricades for the police. The eyes of the media are on them. The cops are watching them. If you are in the middle you get blamed. They are not used to it and they are being judged by everyone."

O'Donnell said there was also an added pressure from politicians, who were more likely to criticise police for under-reacting than over-reacting. He said: "Police are in a difficult spot and it's inevitable they find themselves criticised. But things can spin out of control and then people say: 'Why weren't they in riot gear?'

"Over-arresting is not going to get them into trouble, but if they are under-arresting that will be politically problematic."