In the early morning of Sunday, June 15, Devin Hunt was violently assaulted by multiple IMPD officers. Onlookers recorded the incident and shared their videos to social media, where the posts quickly caught fire—igniting outrage from those that watched.
Just days after Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police President Rick Snyder hilariously praised the “officers, leaders of the IMPD” for the lack of violence amidst one of the largest and most disciplined anti-ICE and pro-immigrant protests in the city’s recent history, the IMPD once again showed its true colors.
While several of Indianapolis’ news outlets have been forced to cover the viral video of the assault on Hunt, none have gone beyond simply sharing IMPD’s own words framing the assault. In the video below, PSL Indianapolis proves the falsity of IMPD’s statement simply by analyzing videos collected by bystanders.
Breaking down IMPD’s lies
At 3:30 AM on Sunday, June 15, IMPD officers violently assaulted Devin Hunt. In light of multiple videos capturing the attack and the events that led up to it, IMPD released a statement describing a falsified series of events that did not really happen to justify their actions and to attempt to prosecute the victim of their brutality.
IMPD said, “An officer observed two men begin shouting at one another and engaging in a physical confrontation as a crowd gathered around them.” While people were shouting, there was no fighting. IMPD said “Officers intervened and gave multiple verbal commands for both men to separate. One of the men walked away, while the other remained.” In reality, Officer Steven Rzyski is clearly heard giving a command to “Stop,” and Devin Hunt immediately complies.
- Steven Rzyski: “Stop! Stop!”
- Devin Hunt: “Ah, okay.”
After Devin stopped, Rzyski took an additional step toward him. Devin asked what the officer wanted. Rzyski did not answer, and instead mockingly repeated the question back to him.
- DH: “What? What?”
- SR: (mockingly) “What.”
- DH: “What?” SR: (mockingly) “What?”
- DH: (pointing to the pepperball gun) “Why are you walking up with that?”
IMPD said, “the individual allegedly squared his shoulders toward the officer and struck the officer’s hand after the officer physically extended his arm to create space.” But remember that it was Officer Rzyski who established himself so close to Devin, not the other way around.
In reality, Rzyski attacks Devin, shoving him backwards, and Devin moves Rzyski’s hand away in legitimate self-defense.
- DH: “Stop! Don’t fucking touch me!”
As he says “Stop, don’t fuckin’ touch me,” Rzyski raises his pepperball gun. IMPD said he fired “three projectiles from a high-pressure launcher,” but you can plainly see and hear four shots hit Devin in the chest. A photograph of Devin’s chest taken after the attack shows four welts. Even so, Devin does not escalate in response.
IMPD said “As the officer moved in to detain him, the individual pulled away and attempted to flee.” But that isn’t what happened at all. Rzyski approaches Devin and grabs his left wrist. Rzyski has not told him that he is being detained or under arrest.
Rzyski yanks Devin’s left wrist forward with his own left hand, forcing Devin to take long steps forward as he tries to stay on his feet, and pulls backward on Devin’s backpack with his right hand. Devin takes long strides to remain on his feet, but does not attempt to start running away. Instead, he stops. As he stops, his left shoe falls off.
Devin leans to his right, as Rzyski pushes him away from his natural center of gravity over his feet. Devin takes a step forward to stay on his feet. Rzyski pulls him to the left with his left hand and pulls back on his backpack again, forcing his legs wide; Rzyski steps in between his legs and shoves him backward onto the ground.
- DH: “Are you serious? What am I doing?”
- SR: “Come grab him!”
- DH: “What am I doing?”
IMPD said “during the struggle to gain control of the individual’s hands, another officer delivered three strikes to [the] individual’s torso in an effort to secure compliance and take him into custody.” Ryan McKee, the officer who punched Devin, was violently attacking someone who was already pinned to the ground by four other officers.
As soon as he was tackled to the ground, Devin’s arms were in front of him. Another officer grabs his backpack and flips him over. A second later, McKee smacks him in the face and then pushes his face into the sidewalk, splitting his lip. There is no struggle to gain control of Devin’s hands—his left arm was grabbed by one officer, an officer kneels at his head, and McKee grabs his right arm and puts it behind his back. Once his arms are behind his back, McKee punches him three times for no reason other than to terrorize him.
IMPD claims to be committed to transparency, accountability, and maintaining public trust, but their June 15 statement was full of obvious lies intended to justify the brutalization, arrest, and prosecution of a young Black man.
IMPD General Orders supposedly require officers to “de-escalate situations to resolve encounters without the use of force when feasible.” General Order 1.30, “Use of Force Principles,” further demands that officers “slow down encounters to gain voluntary compliance,” give a “verbal warning prior to the use of force, when feasible,” and to never “knowingly or intentionally escalate a situation.”
The video makes it clear that officers rapidly escalated and did not communicate with Devin. General Orders also state that “officers may not use or threaten to use force to force compliance with an officer’s request,” but IMPD admitted that McKee threw his punches “in an effort to secure compliance” from someone who was already doing what police said to.
We’ve broken what happened down piece by piece, but in reality, it took less than 30 seconds for Devin to go from being told to stop—and complying—to being shot point-blank with pepper balls, yanked around, tackled, slapped in the face, head pushed into the ground, and punched.
Devin did everything the cops told him to do, but that still wasn’t enough. Just days ago, Fraternal Order of Police President Rick Snyder praised IMPD officers for keeping their fingers off the trigger during the ICE Out of Indy protest that coincided with Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Just days later, IMPD is back to showing Naptown who they really are.
IMPD says videos like this “raise important questions.” The question we have to ask when we see cops like Rzyski and McKee is, “How will our community organize to stop racist police terror?”