A Pittsburgh police officer has been suspended from active duty, after a 14-second clip showing the officer violently punching a young teen at Pittsburgh Pride surfaced online. That clip has now been shared over 40,000 times on Facebook, with multiple copies appearing on Youtube and Facebook.

The clip showed police officer Souroth Chatterji grabbing Ariel Lawther by the neck, throwing her to the ground, then picking her up by her hair, and then punching her in the stomach several times, before restraining her in front of the crowd.

The incident took place at Pittsburgh’s Pridefest on Sunday afternoon, and the officer has been placed on desk duty for a month while the arrest is investigated.

“The officer has been taken off the street and will remain off the street for 30 days. He has been suspended for many other outside duties while the investigation continues,” Mayor Bill Peduto said.

According to officer Chatterji’s report, Lawther had been engaged in a verbal conflict with Eric Moure, an anti-gay pride event protester.

Chatterji then claims that Lawther “struck him repeatedly” before the arrest shown in the clip, adding: “I punched Lawther in the left abdomen several times to distract her enough so I could handcuff her”.

He also claims to have spoken to Lawther half an hour before the arrest, asking her not to be “physically offensive” towards pride demonstrators.

In a 4-minute video clip of the incident, officer Chatterji’s claims that 19-year-old Ariel Lawther struck him do not appear to be accurate. Judge for yourself below (the officer appears in the shot around the 3:02 mark):

Multiple eyewitnesses dispute the officers claims that Lawther physically assaulted him and that he is lying. “No, she never laid her hands on anybody,” Autumn Huntera told us.

According to Huntera, the incident occurred around 5 o’clock Sunday afternoon. She explains that the teen engaged in a heated debate with a group of anti-gay protesters attending the Pride festival: “She was saying that being gay is not a sin and that she was a lesbian and proud of it, and that she wasn’t going to hell for it.”

Huntera detailed her account of the incident for us:

The girl was debating with one of the protesters, and she stepped closer without even realizing it and the officer ran over to her. He grabbed her by the back of her neck, pulled her over, dropped her on the ground, pulled her up by her hair, and said “Do you want me to hit you.” When she didn’t respond, he hit her in stomach area about 4 or 5 times repeatedly. After everyone yelled at him, he hand cuffed her, put her against a wall. She was crying against a wall next to her ‘attacker’ while her fiancee was panicking trying to find someone who recorded it.

A second eyewitness who was attending the pride event with her young son, also denies the officers accusations. “The officer was not kicked and punched,” Lawanda Pearson recounts. “The girl just stood her ground as the officer got in her face, and then he grabbed her and threw her on the ground. When she did not get back up, the cop grabbed her by her hair and pulled her up saying, ‘Do you want me to hit you then he just repeatedly punch her on her side.’”

Do you think the officer used excessive force on the teenage girl? Leave your opinions in the comment section below.