Video shows white Wisconsin police officer punching black teenager in the face

A Wauwatosa, Wis., police officer was recorded on video repeatedly punching a black teenager in the face while another officer is seen restraining the boy.

Local NBC affiliate TMJ4 reported that a 17-year-old black male was arrested by police for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in the parking lot of the Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa after the fight.

The incident was captured on cellphone video by a bystander who can be heard in the video wondering why the officer is striking the young man.

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According to local media, five teens were asked to leave the mall for being underage, and were approached by the officers in the parking lot. The officer appears to begin striking the teen after the young man resisted being grabbed by another officer.

“I knew it was wrong, that punch was wrong,” said Tyrone Jackson, the bystander who filmed the scene. “If it was just a tussling, trying to get him down, OK that would be something different. But the punch to the face, twice, to a minor, it was something serious to me.”

Local police told Slate in a statement that they would investigate the incident, but stressed that it only showed one side of the confrontation.

“I can assure you that we take all situations seriously when they involve a use of force by our officers,” Wauwatosa Police Chief Barry Weber told Slate in a statement. “We thoroughly review all incidents in which force is used by an officer and will do so in this incident, as well.”

The video is going viral just days after another video showed a police officer choking and slamming a black teen on the ground at a Waffle House in Warsaw, N.C., where the man and his teenage sister were eating dinner in prom attire.

Warsaw’s mayor defended that officer’s actions on Friday, calling it “not a racially motivated issue.”