Durham police say officers followed “proper protocol” in a recent arrest captured in a viral video showing an officer punching and kneeling on a 16-year-old boy.

The six-minute video, which was widely shared after it was posted to Facebook on Friday, ends with a second arrest of another young person who had been swearing at police. At least eight police vehicles and an ambulance attended the call.

Both of the arrested teens appear to be Black.

The video does not show the events immediately before the arrests.

In a statement Monday, Durham Regional Police Service said officers were responding to a May 15 call “regarding a distraught male possibly armed with a knife” when they found the 16-year-old walking with friends on a residential street near Cathedral Dr. and Brookstream Court in Whitby.

The boy had “existing cuts to his hand and was unco-operative with officers, who tried to talk to him,” reads the statement. While attempting to apprehend the boy, the officers brought him to the ground and tried to handcuff him, it continues.

“Several punches were used to gain compliance of the male, who refused to make his hands available. The male was eventually placed into custody and was not injured.”

Throughout the video, the person who appears to be filming the arrest asks the officers to identify themselves.

At no point in the video do the male and female officer making the arrest mention a knife.

Shailene Panylo, 22, posted the video to her Facebook page Friday.

The University of Toronto student is a member a community advisory committee for the Durham Children’s Aid Society, and a concerned committee member shared the video with her.

Panylo, who also facilitates a not-for-profit group called Durham Black Students Network, used neutral language to introduce the video and asked for more information about the incident.

By Monday, the post had been shared 2,700 times, and Panylo had been in touch with the mother of the 16-year-old, and learned more.

The mother called police for a “medical mental health intervention,” and wanted the teen to be admitted to hospital for a psychiatric assessment, said Panylo. There was a belief that he may have, or was going to, take pills.

The teen did not want to be hospitalized, and that is where the video picks up, said Panylo.

It opens with two officers on either side of the youth. They take him down, face first, onto grass beside a road. The male officer tells him, “Hands behind your back or I’m going to have to hit you.”

The youth does not offer up his hands. With his right knee on the neck and upper back area of the youth, the officer delivers six punches with his right closed fist to the youth’s lower left back area before he manages to handcuff him.

“Get the f--- off me, bro,” the teen says during the struggle, and yells out in apparent pain. Other voices, those of the friends he was with, yell and swear at the police and ask, “Why are you doing this to the guy?”

In all, the struggle to handcuff the teen lasts about 100 seconds, and then backup cruisers arrive.

WARNING: THIS VIDEO PORTRAYS VIOLENCE THAT WILL BE DISTURBING TO SOME VIEWERS.

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Durham police say officers “followed protocol” in a viral video showing the May 15 arrest of a 16-year-old boy in Whitby following a mental health call.

After learning more about the context of the video, Panylo said she found the police response “very, very horrifying, and it’s scary as another racialized person, that you just never know.

“Someone calls for your own safety and then that’s how you’re treated? There’s just so many layers. It’s hard to sift through.”

The Star has posted a version of the video that has been edited to protect the identities of the young people involved. Names have been bleeped out and faces are blurred.

Police spokesperson Const. George Tudos told the Star on Monday that the officers eventually provided their names and badge numbers and said this information is also on police uniforms.

Tudos said the 16-year-old boy was the subject of the original emergency call.

Durham police say the officers “are not under investigation and the officers followed proper protocol based in the information provided.”

A copy of the video will be sent to the training branch of the service’s professional standards unit for review, the statement says.

The video also shows officers take a second young male to the hood of an SUV cruiser after he can be heard saying, “What the f---?” An officer responds, “Pardon me,” then grabs the boy’s arm. Three officers then take him to the cruiser.

The boy who appears to be filming can be heard saying, “No, no, no. That’s crazy ... he did nothing wrong, man.”

Tudos confirmed the second young man was arrested and charged with causing a disturbance in a public place. He was issued a bylaw ticket, Tudos said.

Asked if it was standard procedure to arrest someone who swore at police, Tudos said police can arrest someone who is yelling and generally causing a disturbance.

It is not clear who shot the video. Throughout, police do not attempt to stop the filming of the arrest.