Two police officers in Atlanta have been fired after bodycam footage showed them dragging a Spelman College student and a Morehouse College student from a car during protests over the death of George Floyd.
The video, which was later released by law enforcement, shows over a dozen officers surrounding Messiah Young and Taniyah Pilgrim as they sat in Young's car in downtown Atlanta on Saturday night.
A police official can be seen forcing one of the front doors open, while another smashes the glass of another door window.
Both students can be heard screaming in the footage, and Young pleads with the officers to let them go, stating: "I'm not dying today".
Watch the released bodycam footage below (some people will find this upsetting):One officer then proceeds to use a taser on Pilgrim and pulls her out of the car, while another tasers Young, shouting: "Get your hand out of your pockets," and "He's got a gun".
Per a police report filed subsequently, no gun was found at the scene, according to the Evening Standard.
The police investigators involved, Ivory Streeter and Mark Gardner, have since been dismissed, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said.
Both officers - who are also black - were reportedly with the force for over 10 years.
In the same news conference, Lance Bottoms detailed that three other officers have been put on desk duty, pending an investigation.
Gardner wrote in an incident report that he used his taser "to bring the female passenger under control".
Pilgrim has been released without charges. However, Young was released after being charged with attempting to elude police and driving with a suspended license.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has ordered that these charges against him be dropped, news.com.au reports.
Chief of the Atlanta police, Erika Shields, has apologized on behalf of the officers, and denounced their actions as "unacceptable".
In an interview with CNN, Pilgrim described the incident as "traumatizing" and revealed that she thought she was going to die. She said: "I was thinking, OK this is the end."
"I don’t want that for anyone else. This is disgusting. This isn’t right," she added.
Young suffered a broken wrist during the struggle with officers and later received 20 stitches in his forearm.
He told CNN he had bruises "all over" his ribs and had the taser probes in his back for about eight hours. He said:
"It’s probably one of the hardest moments that I’ve had to face in my life. I just can’t even fathom what happened.
"At this point, I’m just so far gone, it’s like I’m trying to remove myself from that situation, but it’s really hard to cope with."
African-American George Floyd was arrested by Minneapolis police on Monday, May 25, for reportedly using a counterfeit $20 note in a store.
While being detained, ex-cop Derek Chauvin - a 19-year veteran of the force - knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
On Friday it was revealed that Derek Chauvin, the fired police officer recorded kneeling on Floyd's neck, had been detained and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.
More on Chauvin's arrest below:Protests, both peaceful and violent, have since erupted across the US and in major cities across the world.
These protests are calling out the systemic injustices carried out against black people, not least seen by the recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor.
They are also demanding an end to police brutality and the racism that is so deeply entrenched in America and the western world.
The message is simple: Black lives matter.
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