Two New York City police officers were placed under investigation after a handful of videos surfaced online showing them repeatedly punching, kicking and dragging a man whom they were trying to arrest on Tuesday afternoon.
The two officers, who both work in the Narcotics Borough in Brooklyn, were stripped of their guns and shields and placed on desk duty on Wednesday, according to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. They were being investigated by the Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, which looks into reports of police misconduct.
In a statement on social media, Ms. Tisch called the videos “deeply disturbing.”
The Police Department said on Wednesday that the officers had mistakenly targeted the wrong man while executing an undercover drug operation in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn on Tuesday.
The recordings, which capture the two officers brutally beating the man for almost two minutes as they struggle to get him into handcuffs, set off swift outrage from police critics, New York lawmakers and civil libertarians. The conduct also drew a forceful condemnation from Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has moderated his response to cases involving the police’s use of force and has taken pains to build trust among the city’s roughly 35,000 uniformed officers.
“The violence used by N.Y.P.D. officers in this video is extremely disturbing and unacceptable,” Mr. Mamdani wrote in a post on social media on Wednesday afternoon.
The officers had been seeking a man in a white shirt and green shorts who was involved in the sale of crack cocaine earlier that day, the department said. At the time of the arrest, the officers believed that the man in the video was the person in question. The man in the video has since been identified as Timothy Brown, according to a person familiar with the matter but not authorized to speak on the record.
But, after beating Mr. Brown and finally charging him with resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration, the police determined that Mr. Brown had in fact not been involved in the drug sale at all, the department said.
After his arrest, Mr. Brown was given a ticket to appear in court. But a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney said on Wednesday that the office will decline to prosecute the case. Mr. Brown could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.
The recordings of the event, captured by at least two bystanders and posted on social media, show the two officers as they begin arresting Mr. Brown, with almost immediately violent force, inside a liquor store in Brooklyn. The video begin as the officers, one of whom is in plain clothes and the other wearing a Police Department vest, approach Mr. Brown, who is standing near a glass wall.
It is not immediately clear what happened before the interaction, but by the time the recordings begin, the two officers have grabbed each of Mr. Brown’s arms and have begun forcefully pulling him backward as he yells, “All right, all right.”
Less than one second later, one of the officers begins punching Mr. Brown in the head as he struggles in their grip. The two officers then push Mr. Brown against a wall and continue to punch him forcefully around his shoulder and head as a bystander yells.
As Mr. Brown keels over, the officers push him headfirst into a display cabinet, sending dozens of bottles of wine breaking around him. As Mr. Brown scrambles through the broken glass on the floor, one officer punches him in the head while the other grabs his ankle and begins to drag him across the floor of the store.
By this point, the officers have begun to yell at Mr. Brown to roll over so they can handcuff him, and Mr. Brown, who already has a handcuff on his left wrist, limply complies but appears to withhold an arm. An officer then appears to kick him in the back and head and stands on one of his legs while the other pins him to the ground. A pool of what appears to be blood is visible on the floor around Mr. Brown’s leg.
While they hold him on the ground, Mr. Brown can be heard telling the officers that he was returning from his job as a security guard, adding that his identification is in his pocket. New York State records show a man with the same name as Mr. Brown currently holds a license as a security guard.
After some time, Mr. Brown complains of pain in his leg and the officers yell for him to put his hands behind his back. “I’m trying,” he can be heard saying, while the officer pinning him to the ground continues to hold him down. The back-and-forth continues for minutes longer, as the officers curse at Mr. Brown and Mr. Brown yells in pain. Finally, Mr. Brown frees his right arm and waves it around until the officers successfully handcuff him.
Throughout the process, the officers can be heard cursing at the onlookers, who are trying to call for medical help. From the floor, Mr. Brown can be heard repeating that he is a security guard.
Eventually, the officers pick Mr. Brown off the floor and escort him outside, where he is helped toward an awaiting ambulance.
Hurubie Meko contributed reporting, and Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
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