New Jersey police Grab Child by Throat, Drag Him to Ground to Get Bicycle

Two New Jersey police officers were filmed apprehending a child on a bicycle on Sunday.

Video of the arrest in Ridgewood sparked angry debates online, with many branding it ridiculously heavy-handed, while others felt the boy deserved it for allegedly disrupting traffic.

The 45-second clip shows one officer pulling the handlebar of the boy’s bike from him, as the boy slowly backs away, holding onto it.

A second officer then swiftly approaches from behind, out of view of the child, and appears to grab him with both hands around his throat.

Using his full weight, the second officer then drags the boy to the ground while the first wrests the bike from his grip, before abandoning the bike to help the second officer pin the child to the ground.

His friends gasp and shout in protest, while the boy himself, with a forearm pressing his neck into the asphalt, cries in pain, begging them to take their weight off his stomach.

They cuff him and drag him back to his feet, but the boy seems to have trouble standing, before the video cuts.

One commenter who claimed to be from the town said a “couple dozen” kids on bikes had started blocking traffic three towns away, before making their way to Ridgewood where they ran into police.

A news photographer on the scene shortly afterward said the incident involved a “flash mob” group of bicyclists.

“No police officers were injured in the incident,” he wrote on Facebook. “A police supervisor reported that the individual taken into custody was likely a minor.”

“He was transported to Ridgewood PD headquarters for processing. Police at the scene did not reveal what charges would be pressed.”

TooFab has reached out to Ridgewood PD for comment.