WHEN SELORM OHENE stood in the middle of a busy Cambridge thoroughfare, police officers had no choice but to get him under restraint quickly for his own safety. The Cambridge Police Department will conduct an investigation of the incident, as it should, but based on a viewing of a video of the incident, the police should be given the benefit of the doubt for their actions in subduing Ohene.
The video, lasting 7:06 minutes, begins with three officers confronting the naked Ohene on the median strip of Massachusetts Avenue north of Harvard Square.
Cars and buses are driving by on both sides of the busy street. Ohene is facing toward the officer at the left in the video.
At 2:05, Ohene turns and moves toward an officer at the right. That officer puts his hands out as though to fend him off. Ohene clenches his fists. Then the officer at the left tackles Ohene from behind. Ohene’s arms and legs are flailing as officers force him to stay on the ground. One officer punches him several times (I could not determine the number because a moving bus blocked the view). The last punch is thrown at about 2:55. Ohene is subdued and apparently handcuffed. A police cruiser and an ambulance arrive, and the video ends.
Several people witnessed the incident and took photos and the video. A couple of them provided an ongoing commentary: “You don’t gotta do that! Don’t punch him.” . . . “Let him breathe.” . . . “They pick and choose who they do that to.” Ohene, a Harvard student, is from Ghana. The onlooker assumed that the police used violence against Ohene because he is black.
There are many instances of police targeting blacks in the United States, but this isn’t one of them. Ohene was not “minding his own business.” Any person standing naked on the median strip of Massachusetts Avenue could easily run into the street and get him or herself killed, or even harm others. The police needed to get Ohene off the median strip quickly and into a hospital where he could be evaluated for mental health or substance abuse issues.
The onlookers, like other people who have seen the video, were appalled by the punches thrown by one officer. But the most significant act of violence came when the police officer at the left tackled Ohene to prevent him from lunging at the officer on the right. Perhaps Ohene didn’t have violent intentions, but the officer on the left couldn’t have known them. And by tackling him, the officer guaranteed that Ohene, not the other officer, would be on the ground first. Ohene could have been badly hurt by the fall, but he had enough energy to flail his legs. Officers had to use more violence — the punches — to keep him on the ground and under control.
The Cambridge Police investigation needs to get the answers to questions that the video couldn’t answer: What caused Ohene to take his clothes off and end up on the median strip? What did he and the police say to each other before the violence? Could better police procedures or training have produced a nonviolent outcome?
Once Ohene turned and approached the police officer on the right, however, the police had only a few seconds to prevent him from doing something that might have harmed him or them. They had to get him on the ground and under restraint. Their work is hard and dangerous, and unless new, damaging information turns up beyond the video, they should not be second-guessed.
Thomas Gagen is a former editorial writer for the Globe.