The mayor of St Paul, Minnesota has ordered an internal investigation on police officers involved with the arrest of a 13-year-old girl at UPS Store last week.
The investigation comes after video of the arrest emerged and officers were accused of excessive force.
The video appears to show one officer putting his leg on the girls back, while another officer appears to place his leg on her head.
St Paul Mayor Melvin Carter called the video ‘disturbing’ in a statement released on Wednesday and called on police chiefs to investigate the incident.
“This video is deeply disturbing to watch,” Carter said in a statement he gave on Wednesday.
“I have asked Chief Axtell to launch a formal Internal Affairs investigation into the circumstances surrounding this arrest as soon as possible.”
According to police, the teen was arrested because she violated a no-trespassing order, ran from the police and then resisted arrest.
An internal affairs investigation has now been opened for the three officers involved in the arrest, Alexander Graham, Grady Sheehy and Charles Busch.
The mother of the girl said officers were overly aggressive in the handling of her daughter, who she said has a mental illness. The woman says her daughter was ‘basically treated like an animal.’
