The governor of Alabama offered a written apology to the people of India on Tuesday for the severe injuries suffered by an Indian visitor hurled to the ground by a police officer this month.

Gov. Robert Bentley wrote that he deeply regretted “the unfortunate use of excessive force” against Sureshbhai Patel, a grandfather recently arrived from India, by an officer responding to a 911 call about a “skinny black guy” walking through a Huntsville suburb on Feb. 6.

Police video of the police actions, and an image of Mr. Patel immobilized in a hospital bed — suffering from temporarily paralysis, with fused vertebrae — had fueled outrage on social networks and Indian television for the past week.