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BALTIMORE -- A Baltimore police officer shown on a YouTube video berating and roughly handling a skateboarder at the Inner Harbor has been suspended.
Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department and the mayor's office, said the incident involving Officer Salvatore Rivieri, a 17-year veteran, is the subject of an internal affairs investigation.
The video, apparently shot last summer, shows Rivieri putting the youth, 14-year-old Eric Bush, into a headlock and pushing him to the ground.
The boy said he did not hear an order that the officer had given him about skateboarding at the Harbor.
Rivieri repeatedly got upset at being called "dude" in the video. "I'm not 'man.' I'm not 'dude,' I am Officer Rivieri," he told the teen. "The sooner you learn that, the longer you are going to live in this world. Because you go around doing this kind of stuff and somebody is going to kill you."
Rivieri told The Sun on Sunday that he did not know that the incident had been recorded or posted on the Internet. He acknowledged having encounters with skateboarders at the Inner Harbor, where skateboarding is banned, last summer, and told a reporter that he would watch the video on YouTube.
After he was suspended Monday, Rivieri said he had no comment.
Paul Blair, head of the police union, had not seen the video but he warns that videos show only part of a story.
The video came to the attention of police after a Sun reporter e-mailed the 3 1/2 minute link to the police Sunday morning.
Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department and the mayor's office, said the incident involving Officer Salvatore Rivieri, a 17-year veteran, is the subject of an internal affairs investigation.
The video, apparently shot last summer, shows Rivieri putting the youth, 14-year-old Eric Bush, into a headlock and pushing him to the ground.
The boy said he did not hear an order that the officer had given him about skateboarding at the Harbor.
Rivieri repeatedly got upset at being called "dude" in the video. "I'm not 'man.' I'm not 'dude,' I am Officer Rivieri," he told the teen. "The sooner you learn that, the longer you are going to live in this world. Because you go around doing this kind of stuff and somebody is going to kill you."
Rivieri told The Sun on Sunday that he did not know that the incident had been recorded or posted on the Internet. He acknowledged having encounters with skateboarders at the Inner Harbor, where skateboarding is banned, last summer, and told a reporter that he would watch the video on YouTube.
After he was suspended Monday, Rivieri said he had no comment.
Paul Blair, head of the police union, had not seen the video but he warns that videos show only part of a story.
The video came to the attention of police after a Sun reporter e-mailed the 3 1/2 minute link to the police Sunday morning.
