Cops in Tel Aviv said to assault Arab man who doesn’t show ID
Police say victim resisted arrest, struck policemen; eyewitnesses claim man ‘beaten senseless’ in unprovoked attack
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Several eyewitnesses in Tel Aviv on Sunday alleged a case of severe police brutality against an Arab employee at a supermarket close to Rabin Square. Police said the man was resisting arrest and attacked officers.
“Just now in front of City Hall,” one of the bystanders, Erez Krispin, wrote in a Facebook post, “an Arab supermarket worker goes outside to throw out the trash. He’s approached by a man in shorts who says, ‘Show me some ID.’
“‘The ID is inside. Who are you?’” Krispin quoted the supermarket worker as saying in response.
“Before he even finishes speaking, he’s being beaten senseless,” he continued, “a beating like you’ve never seen, teeth flying through the air. The Arab is crushed.
“When an elderly woman asks them why they’re doing it, they yell at her, ‘Fuck off before we finish you too,” Krispin wrote.
תיעוד : קטטה במרכז ת"א בין עובד ערבי לשוטרי מג"ב
המשטרה : השוטרים הם אלה שהותקפו
עדי ראייה מספרים דברים שונים pic.twitter.com/06sfDV02Lk— לירן כוג'הינוף (@lirankog) May 22, 2016
At that point, he went on, uniformed police arrived and continued to beat the man.
“I don’t really know if the Arab is alive; they threw what was left of him into the patrol car, not an ambulance, and drove off.”
He noted that there were many witnesses to the incident, as well as a security camera and other footage.
Another witness, Saguy Green, wrote in a Facebook post that “dozens” of plainclothes and riot police descended on the man, “a worker at the Yuda Supermarket.”
Green’s post, which included a picture of officers pinning down the man, quoted another employee at the supermarket who said that the man was beaten because he didn’t show the police his ID.
“Not that there’s any comfort or hope in that, but many in the crowd sprung to his aid and protested the endless violence against him, and filmed the cops,” she wrote.
A spokeswoman for the Israel Police told The Times of Israel that the man had resisted arrest and attacked officers, and that the investigation was ongoing.
“There is nothing at all to add,” she said, without explaining what the man is suspected of. “The circumstances are still under investigation. Refusal to be detained and to submit to a search is illegal.”
MK Dov Khenin of the Joint (Arab) List condemned the police beating, which he termed a “lynching,” and called on the government to investigate the incident.
“I have conveyed an urgent message to the public security minister demanding answers for what appears, on the face of it, to have been a lynching in broad daylight,” Khenin said in a statement, “an assault on an innocent citizen by police solely because he is an Arab.”
The Times of Israel Community.