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A video captured a Chicago city officer body-slamming a man who allegedly spat on him during an arrest last month. The officer has been relieved of his duties pending an investigation into the incident. 29-year-old Bernard Kersh was taken to the hospital and was later charged with felony aggravated battery on a police officer in the Nov. 28 incident according to the Chicago Tribune. Kersh is also facing misdemeanor charges of resisting police and simple assault.

The officer involved in the incident hasn’t been named. The short clip shows Kersh standing facing a police SUV when the officer standing behind him lifts him off his feet and slams him on the ground. The body slam caused him to hit his head on the curb. Kersh then laid on the ground motionless for several seconds before another officer comes over to check on him.

“Oh my god! Look what the f–k they just did to this boy!” Jovanna Alexiss Jamison said who filmed the arrest. “For no reason.”

Authorities claim the officer was used as an “emergency takedown maneuver” after Kersh became “irate” and licked the officer’s face before spitting in his eyes. Police also claim Kersh made threats toward the officer.

“There was a substantial amount of spit, in liquid form, that landed in the eye of (the officer),” Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said. Murphy added that some of the spit dripped into the officer’s mouth during the incident. According to court records, Kersh struggles with mental illness and was previously convicted in 2018 for spitting on an officer.

Regardless of the conviction activist Eric Russell slammed the officer’s excessive use of force alleging “This was, for all practical purposes, attempted murder.”

“We are of the opinion that these bogus criminal cover charges are just that — bogus criminal cover charges to cover up a police crime,’ Russell said.

The incident started after plainclothes officers noticed the Chicago man drinking vodka at a bus stop according to the newspaper. Prosecutors said one of the officers took Kersh’s drink during the patrol stop and was attempting to write him a ticket when the man spat in the officer’s face. Then the body-slam happened. Video footage of the incident sparked outrage and the officer actions are being reviewed by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) to determine if the body-slam was justified.

“This incident is under investigation, as the actions in the video are concerning,” CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement. “If wrongdoing is discovered, officers will be held accountable,” he added. Kersh was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center where he was treated and stabilized according to FOX 32.

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