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'Nothing justifies that': Atlanta police sergeant suspended after kicking handcuffed woman in head

An Atlanta police sergeant has been suspended without pay after a viral video showed him kick a woman in the head while she was handcuffed and on her stomach.

The six-second video, posted on the Instagram page Atlanta Uncensored, shows a woman face down on the ground with her hands handcuffed behind her back. The woman lifts her head and a uniformed officer, identified by the Atlanta Police Department as a sergeant, kicks her in the head. Another officer appears to do nothing during the incident.

The sergeant who kicked the woman was suspended and the other officer was placed on administrative assignment, Atlanta police announced in a statement Monday.

The names of the sergeant and the other officer were not released in the statement.

"Upon reviewing the video, the actions of the sergeant appear to be unacceptable and we are also concerned with the apparent lack of reaction from another officer present during the incident," according to the statement, which added an "expedited" investigation is underway.

The department’s Office of Professional Standards will investigate the actions of the officers.

Officers responded Monday to reports of a woman pointing a gun at several people, according to the police statement. After detaining the woman in the video, officers said they "became concerned with the female’s mental health" and requested she be transported to the hospital for evaluation. The woman was not charged with a crime, the statement said.

Gerald Griggs, vice president of the NAACP’s Atlanta chapter, told Fox 5 he was "shocked and angered" by the video and "at no point should a citizen of Atlanta be kicked in the face while they’re handcuffed.”

"We’ve been talking about community-police relations for a long time in Atlanta, and to see something like that — a handcuffed individual kicked in the face — nothing justifies that."

The incident is reminiscent of a 2018 viral video that showed a Miami police officer kicking a detained man's head as he was lying face down. Body camera footage released in April showed the violent arrest of a 73-year-old Colorado woman with dementia. In May, a 75-year-old man suffered a stroke and a burst appendix after an Idaho officer used a stun gun on him.

Contact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Atlanta officer suspended after kicking handcuffed woman in head