Summer of 2020 was a period of time in American history where there were dozens of protests occurring in support of  the Black Lives Matter movement all over the country. Also occurring at these protests was a forceful police presence that was not always working with the safety of the protestors in mind. Buffalo, New York, was no exception to this. 

Two Buffalo police officers pushed  75 year-old Martin Gugino to the ground and fractured his skull during a protest occurring in Buffalo Square.

 On Friday, April 8, both officers were found innocent by an arbitrator. The arbitrator, Jeffery M. Selchick, stated that the use of this level of force on the elderly man was “absolutely legitimate.” He was adamant that Gugino was “definitely not an innocent bystander” because he was supposedly not complying with the police’s orders to leave the area. 

Even if Gugino was not complying with the orders of the officers at the speed of which they wished, there was absolutely no reason to shove him down. He is an elderly man who was not acting in any way that was a threat to himself or the heavily armed, riot-gear-outfitted officers around him. The two officers who shoved him should have instead escorted him out of the area, since the  justification for the amount of force they used was that he needed to leave. 

A citizen’s failure to comply with police orders should never be immediately reacted to with violence from the police unless that person is an immediate, legitimate threat to themselves or others around them. The job of the police is supposed to be keeping the people of this country safe, not controlling the population.

The transgressions of these officers, McCabe and Torgalski, do not end with the actions they took against Gugino. Both officers lied during the arbitration proceeding in an attempt to downplay the amount of force they used against the elderly man. McCabe claimed that he gave Gugino a “nudge” to “get him away from [their] personal space.” Torgalski testified that he “didn’t make solid contact with Gugino.” 

Both of the statements made by McCabe and Torgalski are proven incorrect by footage of the incident. It is clear that McCabe did more than just “nudge” the elderly man, and Torgalski did in fact make contact with Gugino’s person. However, it is clear that the fact the officers attempted to hide the total truth of their transgressions had no negative effect on the result of the arbitration. 

To make matters even worse, Buffalo Police initially stated that Gugino simply tripped and fell, despite the fact that the statement is a blatant lie and is disproven by video proof of the opposite. 

There is a part of me that wonders if McCabe and Torgalski would have reacted the same way to Gugino if he had been in the vicinity of any other type of protest. The amount of times during the Summer of 2020, and even since then, that police responding to Black Lives Matter protests have used an unnecessary amount of force and violence against the protestors is much too high. There were instances where children were pepper-sprayed, where peaceful protests were turned into non-peaceful altercations because the police who were supposed to be there to monitor the situation instigated the violence, and countless other examples. 

The Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, the union representing the two officers, praised the decision of the arbiter. They said he “saw through the political witch hunt” against the officers. 

It makes me worry for the future that holding police officers accountable for their unnecessary uses of force and violence against citizens is seen as a witch hunt, and not the pursuit of justice.