‘Ottawa’ Increase in Videos of civilian-police Interactions
As Abdirahman Abdi lay handcuffed and bleeding on the pavement in front of a Hintonburg apartment building on Sunday, witnesses used cellphones to record the incident.
A woman videotaped 27 minutes of footage of Abdi’s motionless body as police wiped blood from his face and performed chest compressions after paramedics arrived. She later shared the video with Postmedia.
On Tuesday, two shorter videos appeared on YouTube, showing raw footage taken in the moments after Ottawa police grounded and arrested Abdi.
The videos, which depict 37-year-old Abdi already on the ground bleeding, with his pants off of his waist and his face on the pavement, were shared on YouTube Tuesday morning, two days after the police altercation that has sent shockwaves through the community.
Meanwhile, another video taken by an eyewitness shows a potentially more crucial piece of evidence: what happened when Adbi was taken down by police.